On the Track: A Guide to Contemporary Film Scoring

ON THE TRACK

This page intentionally left blank.

ON THE TRACK A GUIDE TO CONTEMPORARY FILM SCORING Second Edition

Fred Karlin and Rayburn Wright Revised by Fred Karlin Foreword by John Williams New music examples engraved by Doug LeBow

Routledge New York • London

Published in 2004 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 www.routledge-ny.com Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE www.routledge.co.uk Copyright © 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 or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.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, including photocopying 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 1 Library 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 music—Instruction and study. 2. Composition (Music) I. Wright, Rayburn. II. Title. MT64.M65K3 2003 781.5′4213–dc21 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)

To Doris, my wife and fellow artist

RW

To my wife, Megan, who brings so much vision and insight to everything I do

FK

This page intentionally left blank.

CONTENTS

Foreword by John Williams Preface to the First Edition Preface to the Second Edition Acknowledgments for the First Edition Acknowledgments for the Second Edition Introduction How to Use This Book

xvii xix xxi xxiii xxiii 3 10

I PRELIMINARIES II CONCEPTUALIZING III TIMINGS IV COMPOSING V RECORDING VI ELECTRONIC AND CONTEMPORARY SCORING VII SONGS VIII THE BUSINESS

Appendix A. Appendix B. Appendix C. Appendix D.

Epilogue: On the Track The Interviewees and Authors Study Assignments Footage/Timing Conversions Calculator Method for Timings Drop-Frame Glossary End Notes Bibliography

730 734 755 763 766 769 772 781 787

Web Sites Music Excerpts Index

791 794 802

This page intentionally left blank.

FOREWORD I am often asked by young composers how they might gain entry into the world of film music. The answer, of course, cannot be simple. While there is no magic formula, good training, 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 the field are solid prerequisites. After that, experience will be the best teacher. Because practical experience is difficult to come by, the next best thing would be the aid of topcaliber professionals willing to share ideas and techniques that have been gleaned from years of experience. On the Track does just that. It sums up the experience of these professionals and offers the reader the opportunity to learn about film composing from their inside point of view. In the past, most composers approached the world of film music from a variety of backgrounds. 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 in general, exploring all styles of music. They also studied the great film scores that led the way 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 their careers in film, they have access to extremely sophisticated synthesizers and computer technology, but they may find that their background is more limited in scope than their predecessors’. To offset this, these musicians will undoubtedly work in areas other than film in order to gain a wide range of useful experience. Although the study of music will be ongoing throughout a composer’s career, he will need the information contained in this book to understand the usage and function of film music as it exists today. Writing, conducting, and playing music while learning about drama through the study of great literature, theater, and films are all essential in preparing for the challenge of scoring films. Karlin and Wright encourage the reader to apply his or her knowledge by practicing scoring film segments from available videotapes. Because their book is organized by topic, it is easy to use as a reference manual or textbook, yet can be read chapter by chapter if you wish. The many musical examples and references to specific moments in a variety of films make the book a tremendously valuable source of study. One final note. In the past we’ve noticed that many of our best musical minds were not interested in film scoring. This was probably the result of the fact that these composers found too many restrictions and technical problems in the film medium, and for some, the practice was simply too “low brow.” I do, however, think that in the future we will see more and more “serious” young composers willing to devote some of their energies to film 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

stay. It is part of our musical future for better or worse, and this book can help to make it better. 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. It collects and presents so much painfully acquired knowledge that it is a signal advance in the study of our field. Finally, I wish all students and readers of this book great joy and much success as they enter what is a universe of sight and sound that we are all just beginning to explore.

JOHN WILLIAMS

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION This book has been written to fill a gap on the film music bookshelf. Rayburn Wright had not 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 current contemporary 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 many requests 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 the prevailing techniques in the art and craft of contemporary film scoring as practiced by today’s leading composers and lyricists. To achieve this goal we have interviewed fortyone composers and lyricists. In addition, because we sought to offer a well-rounded picture 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 working environment: producers, directors, writers, film editors, music editors, music executives and supervisors, network executives, recording engineers, dubbing mixers, musicians, music contractors, copyists, and composer’s agents. Network and music executives’ titles are given as they were at the time of their interviews. To make these candid interviews most useful, quotes have been integrated into our text by topic; for example, quotes about dubbing by composers, directors, and dubbing mixers will 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 any way those of our colleagues who did not participate in these interviews; any such omissions 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 of which are currently available on videocassette. We have not necessarily selected our favorite films and scores (although all the films and scores included herein have much to recommend them). Rather, we have chosen a well-rounded cross-section of works that have yielded invaluable film-music examples. We have placed soaring symphonic scores and funky contemporary scoring solutions side by side, believing that musical style is the language through which the score speaks, and that each film score should find its own appropriate 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 of scoring a film is basically the same in either medium. To provide a historical frame of reference, release dates are indicated parenthetically for all motion pictures and television films the first time they are mentioned in each chapter. This book is addressed to women and men alike. To make this clear we started writing

“he/she” and “himself/herself” before reluctantly recognizing that this procedure was both cumbersome and unreadable. Until a nongenderized pronoun comes into usage we are using the generic “he” and “him” to include all people. More and more women are now becoming active in all phases of film production, and we hope the information within this book will encourage women to compete in a field which historically has been heavily dominated by men. Although our primary goal has been to create a textbook by and for film composers and lyricists, it is our hope that all those involved in or interested in filmmaking and the process of scoring films will find this book helpful in developing a deeper understanding of the art and craft of film scoring and of the men and women who dedicate their lives to this highly demanding profession.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION The function of music in films has changed somewhat from the forties, the sixties, or even the eighties. Different generations of filmgoers bring to the movie-going experience different levels of awareness, emotional needs, and expectations of what that experience might be. An emotional moment that would have been emphasized in a film made in 1948 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 the audience. When films are made that reflect the emotional values of past generations, the music is invariably in tune with those values. The Harry Potter series and the Lord of the Rings trilogy are clear and convincing examples of this, and there are many others. That is not to say that the music is dated, which it isn’t by any definition, nor are the films. In fact, those films use every technical advancement possible to tell their stories. But when a filmmaker takes a different point of view, creating a film that speaks to the audience in a different 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 it is completely appropriate to its story and method of storytelling. With its abstract mallet and percussion sounds and emotional understatement, it is perfectly suited for the film written by Alan Ball and directed by Sam Mendes. High tech films, fast cutting, digital imagery used for style as well as content—these elements can signal the creation of films demanding like-minded musical sounds and approaches. Scores inspired by these films may well have been difficult or impossible to create twenty years ago, just as the technology didn’t exist to make the films. In this regard there have been changes and developments in the scores created at the turn of the twenty-first century. By and large, however, the values inherent in a fine film score remain constant: a strong concept, a deep connection with the film and its emotional core, the appropriate expression of those emotions (whether understated or played full out), and an organic empathy with the film’s characters and story. In this revision of On the Track, I have deleted some, but not many, references to films from the seventies and eighties; the lessons these scores and excerpts teach are timeless. To offer the best overview of film scoring in 2003 I have supplemented these resources with many excerpts from the nineties through 2002. In updating this second edition it has been necessary to omit Alex Brinkman’s click book. 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 computer as a timing aid, relying on various sequencers or the Auricle program to do so. In a book that is still over 500 pages, it just isn’t practical to include it. I have also deleted material about television commercials and other special applications of music with images (and I have not added a section on music for computer games, a growing business). This is not

to imply that these fields are unimportant; in fact, there are film composers who have learned a great deal about scoring films by writing music for commercials. Space limitations have precluded a discussion of these subjects, but the reader will find that the techniques and philosophies discussed here will prepare you well for work in those other related fields. Scoring for television, on the other hand, has its own new chapter (Chapter 22). I have done a moderate amount of reorganization, giving ethnic and genre music a separate chapter (Chapter 11), for instance, and adding a great deal of material on the creation of electronic mockups. The two chapters on electronic music have been completely rewritten, now being represented by “Using Electronic Music.” The “Filmography” has been replaced with a section listing “Music Excerpts,” which contains all the excerpts included in this text accompanied by their Figure numbers. Films mentioned 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 to discuss and to illustrate with musical excerpts should be taken strictly as examples that illustrate points and techniques discussed within the text. A section entitled “Scores for Study” will be found at the end of some of the chapters, and these, too, should in no way be considered an all-inclusive survey, but rather, as the title suggests, a guide to contemporary film scoring. On the Track does not offer a tutorial on writing melodies, nor will you learn from studying it how to create effective harmony, rhythms, or orchestration. These are all requisite skills requiring study and analysis. If you need help with the latest electronic hardware and software, you will need to study the available monthly journals (see the Bibliography), enroll in a course for this purpose, or learn with the help of a friend. The same is true of the arts of composing or conducting. Our purpose is to help you to learn how you can best use all these musical elements in motion pictures and television. If you can do so, we will have fulfilled our goal. Fred Karlin

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOR THE FIRST EDITION

We wish to extend special thanks and gratitude to our seventyseven colleagues who shared their experiences with us so candidly. Their generous comments during our taped interviews have made it possible for the reader to benefit enormously from their professional experience and know-how. Many music copyright owners, administrators, and print licensers have generously permitted us to reprint many excerpts from their motion picture and television music catalogs. In most cases these musical examples are not available through any other source, and permission to reprint them here has allowed us to integrate these invaluable educational reference materials into our text. Our thanks to ABC-TV, Almo Publications, Brooksfilms Music, Buttermilk Sky Associates, Inc., Chrysalis Music Group, Columbia Pictures, Columbia Pictures Publications, Famous Music Corporation, The Guber-Peters Company, Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation, Hemdale Film Corporation ITC Films, Inc., Lorimar Telepictures Music Group, MCA Music, MTM, New Century Entertainment, The Richmond Organization, Screen Gems-EMI, and Warner Bros. Music. Our thanks to Ruby Armstrong and Harry Lojewski at MGM/UA, Bob Bornstein and Eldridge Walker at Paramount Pictures, Julian Brataluvitch at Universal Studios, Harriet Crawford at Columbia Pictures, Danny and Joel Franklin at Warner Bros., and JoAnn Kane at Twentieth-Century Fox for the formidable effort of finding, duplicating, and assembling these manuscripts for inclusion in this text. Especially helpful were the talented composers who assisted us in researching television 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 photographs illustrating the equipment and work environment that is so much a part of the scoring process. Special thanks to Alexander Brinkman, who programmed and printed the click book pages reproduced herein, and to Marc Gebauer, whose “Click-Calc” chart of digital delay timings 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 Music Notebooks) for permission to include several excerpts from previously published

interviews. April Rhodes and Ken Warnick were of great help in transcribing some of our lengthy interviews, and Ed Suchow of Captain Video in Montecito, CA, assisted us in making available 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 Russo’s and David Wright’s many fine suggestions have been incorporated into the final text. Doris Wright and Megan Karlin functioned superbly as overview readers; several readers, including Norman Gimbel, Harry Lojewski, John Richards, and Alan and Marilyn Bergman, read one or more chapters and were most helpful. Especially, in that category, we wish to thank Clark Spangler, whose advice helped shape Chapter 19. And finally, our deepest gratitude to John Milligan, whose editorial insight and suggestions regarding 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; and Julia Palmore, copy editor, for their editorial contributions and invaluable assistance.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOR THE SECOND EDITION

I have again relied upon the shared experiences of my professional colleagues, adding more than fifty new interviews to those already integrated into this text, and I am very grateful to them. Their contribution to this project is enormous. You will find them represented with a small sampling of credits in the section entitled “Interviewees” near the back of the book. Without the cooperation of the many music copyright owners, administrators, and print licensers represented in this second edition, there would be no way to illustrate this text with relevant and updated musical examples. Very little film and television music is available for study, which makes their enthusiastic support of this project all the more significant. My thanks to Cherry Lane (Rebecca Quigley) Dream Works Music Publishing LLC (Todd Homme and Jennifer Schiller), Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation (Chrissy Swearingen), StudioCanal Image (Barbara DiNallo at StudioCanal U.S.), Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (Joel C.High), MCA Music Publishing, Miramax Films (Joe Rengel), MGM/UA (Jonathan Watkins, Chad Greer, Julie Wadley), New Line Cinema (Lori Silfen, Jessica Dolinger), Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Fox Music, Inc. (Ted Spellman and Mary Jo Mennella), Universal Television Network LLC (Brigitte Urbina), 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 service archives, or from the composers’ private libraries. It is only through the thoughtful care and preservation of these valuable resources that they are available to students and professionals to study, and I am very appreciative of the assistance given to me by so

many of my friends and colleagues in this regard: JoAnn Kane and the JoAnn Kane Music Service (and especially Jim Hoffman and Bonnie Cook), Todd Homme and Cindi Smith at Dream Works, Ridge Walker and Bob Bornstein at Paramount Pictures, Danny Gould at Warner Bros., Joanna Beck and Darren Otero at the Sony Pictures Music Library. Many composers were also very helpful in fulfilling my requests for particular cues from their scores: Elmer Bernstein (and Lisa Edmondson), Brad Dechter, Anne Dudley, James Newton Howard (and Kira Lewis), Laura Karpman (and Ray Odell), Mark McKenzie, Mike Post (and Colleen Lightfoot), Donna and Lalo Schifrin (and Niki Duwick), Howard Shore (and Chris Rinaman), Scott Smalley, and Christopher Young (and Samantha Barker). In addition to providing the original scores, several composers and their associates helped to recreate MIDI information so that the resultant score reductions could become a more complete and accurate study reference. This required considerable time and effort for which I am very grateful: Jeff Poyne at Edward Shearmur’s studio, Trevor Morris and Adam Howell at Hans Zimmer’s Media Ventures, and Kira Lewis and Jim Hill at James Newton Howard’s 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 making adjustments as necessary to be certain that the music was as clear and easy to read as possible. Thanks also to Tony DeGeorge, associate production manager at Routledge, for his invaluable assistance. My thanks also to Daniel Allan Carlin and Segue Music for providing the spotting and timing notes and the dubbing log that serve as real-life examples in this edition. Carlin and his associates at Segue Music also provided a great deal of research material on the subject of music editing in 2002. Richard and Ron Grant were also very helpful in providing technical information. And Louise P.Danton at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences generously consolidated all the necessary documentation regarding Emmy nominations 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 major film 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), and Soundtrack (Luc Van de Ven). The authors of these articles include Rudy Koppl, Randall D.Larson, and Jeff Bond. Thanks to Keyboard Magazine (Greg Rule) for permission to quote James Newton Howard’s comments about sampled orchestras (in an article by John Krogh). 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 publicity efforts of some of these artists, it would be impossible to interview them, and I thank them very much for their assistance in this regard: Bill Bernstein, Margo Campillo (Fox Music), Ronni Chasen, Meri Gavin, Cathy Kerr, Patrick Leader, Mo Nakamoto, Julia Quinn, Jamie Richardson (and Christine Lusey), Francesca Robison, Monique Ward, Gia Russo, 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 wish to give a special thanks to contractor David Low; RMA president Phil Ayling (and Marc

Sazer and Ximena Marin); Chief Executive Officer/Administrator of the Film Musicians Secondary Market Fund Dennis Dreith; Diana Szyszkiewicz (ASCAP), and agents John Tempereau and Michael Horner of Soundtrack Music Associates for bringing their experience to this difficult subject. And thanks to JoAnn Kane and Mark Graham for their input regarding music preparation. I found virtually every DVD and videocassette I needed for my research (many three or 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 when I am finished with the draft, and I especially wish to thank my friend and colleague Bill Boston, whose practical and artistic editorial suggestions throughout were very helpful in bringing additional clarity and readability to this second edition. He also corrected many other details such as dates of film releases and nominations/awards credits, although I take full responsibility for any such errors that I might have let slip by in spite of our best efforts. Megan Karlin contributed many fine editorial suggestions. Thanks also to Rebecca Condit, who did the copy editing for Routledge and Henry Bashwiner for shepherding this manuscript through production. I am truly pleased to be working with Richard Carlin, executive editor of music and dance at Routledge. We met when he joined Schirmer Publishing just before my book Listening to Movies was published in 1994, and from that time on he has continued to take an active and enthusiastic interest in this project. He is a real friend of all those who consider film music a subject worthy of greater understanding and appreciation.

INTRODUCTION If you’re 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/Orchestrator

What does it take to be a film composer? First and foremost, a film composer should have a natural musical talent and an inherent dramatic sense. A well-rounded technical background is a necessity, but to be successful, a film composer’s technical skills must be supported by emotional and psychological disciplines. Technique isn’t enough. The composer training to work in films must also be prepared for high levels of stress. There are time pressures, commercial pressures and artistic pressures, and the effectiveness with which the composer deals with these realities will determine to a considerable extent his artistic 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, the producer, and possibly other decision makers involved with the film. If the director believes that a symphonic score is right for his film and the composer cannot demonstrate that there is a better way to score it, the music for that film will probably be a score that uses a symphonic orchestra. This doesn’t preclude creativity—it just defines the medium. The composer must be flexible enough to compose within superimposed (and sometimes arbitrary) 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 the score before, during and after recording. There will be changes until the film is ready for release, and some of these changes may affect the music in unexpected ways. Preserving the artistic integrity of a :30 cue when the editor has just trimmed :07.4 from the scene requires a flexible approach to the art and craft of film composing. Education and experience are useful only if the composer can accept these changes as part of the filmmaking process. Rarely will the composer feel he has enough time to compose, and there are many

situations which require writing a great amount of composed and orchestrated music in a very few days. A dramatic one-hour television series episode may be ready for the composer to score a week prior to dubbing, but there are times when there may be as little as three days to score an episode. On many projects, features even more so than television, ongoing film editing changes can add further time pressures to an already difficult schedule. The filmmaker’s or studio’s desire for a chart-busting single or soundtrack album can exert a great influence on film music decisions, even before a composer is selected to score a film. If the composer is asked to create one or more songs, the marketplace is an ever-present pressure from the time the composer begins a project, influencing every creative discussion and decision. Another force at work, the pressure to conform to a director’s prescribed vision of what the score should be, can be difficult to accommodate artistically. In general, film composers must work with the constant push and pull between the artistic and collaborative elements of the motion picture and television industries—that’s how it is. Nevertheless, there are many times when the film composer will be working with producers and directors who really expect and hope for a score representing the highest artistic standards. It is not wise to rely too much on the filmmaker for artistic validation. Sometimes the filmmaker may not be aware of the potential contribution of a great score, and therefore may settle for much less. “They say, ‘It works,’” says Ira Newborn. “And it’s true, it work—five percent. As long as it works five percent, they think it works. It’s like the pass/fail system. They don’t have the appreciation, because they’re not into it like we are—they don’t realize that something can work ninety-five percent, something can really work, almost as perfectly as it possibly can, and squeeze the juice and magnify the scene, or bring something new to the scene that really makes it intense. They don’t quite understand that.” Brendon Cahill, former Universal Television Vice President, Television and Home Video, believes composers should strive for excellence whenever possible, and take the chances sometimes necessary to achieve that excellence. “The composer who comes in today and bases his foundation on the traditional great masters’ compositions has to be versatile enough to take a chance. The custom and practice for the composer during the last fifty years has been that if you stay with the tried and true you can’t go too far wrong. But it doesn’t have to be that way. It all goes back to the director and producer; you hope they’ll say to you, ‘Look—take a chance. Instead of playing the flute, let’s play a clarinet. Instead of putting a string pattern there, let’s put a synthesizer there. Or try to look at things differently. Here’s the piano and the mic is normally above the piano; let’s turn the mic upside down under the piano and let’s see if that creates a different sound. Maybe the knock of the hammer on the string gets a different sound from the string itself. Take the chance?’” This is good advice. Robert Kraft, President of Fox Music, recognizes that it is not easy to get started in the field. “If you want it, if it’s in the pit of your stomach and you can’t sleep unless you’ve got to have it, then you’re 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, here’s how you make a million dollars a picture as a film composer, you know the line would be all the way out to Pico Boulevard. There’s no secret, you’ve just got to keep hammering away and hope to God

you’re 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 are enough film music programs that there’s 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 jump aboard this film scoring thing? My record career’s in the toilet.’ I say, ‘Oh, you know, it’s a real skill to score a film. It’s not just being a songwriter.’ But, if I hear that a guy went to Berklee or went to the University of Miami or USC, it puts them one yard ahead of the competition because you see he’s been serious, he’s studied, he’s maybe been an apprentice or he’s been on a student film. I think it helps.” The film composers currently working in motion pictures and television come to film scoring with a variety of backgrounds. Some may have gone to conservatory, some come from film music schools like those at Berklee College of Music and the USC one-year postgraduate program, while others are more or less self trained, yet they all have paid their dues one way or another. But how? Some have a theatrical background (John Morris, William Goldstein, Arthur B.Rubinstein, David Shire); many have jazz backgrounds, including Johnny Mandel, Jerry Fielding and Patrick Williams (and many others, like Bill Conti and Shire, were performing jazz musicians as well); Jerry Goldsmith, got his early training at the end of the golden age of radio and the beginnings of television; still others came to films from rock and roll and contemporary music (Anne Dudley, Trevor Rabin, Graeme Revell, Lisa Gerrard, Pieter Bourke, Mike Post), records (James Newton Howard) or commercials (John Powell, Peter Nashel); performing in symphony orchestras provided solid grounding for Gerald Fried and Rubinstein; like some, Elmer Bernstein and Bruce Broughton developed their abilities as classical pianists; and some are conservatorytrained as well. No matter how artistically and technically prepared the composer is, he cannot expect to know everything he’ll 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 the job. 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 Silvestri’s 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 looking for a composer, and listening to tapes for a long time and were still not happy with anything they had heard. And I mean, they had everybody’s tapes on the floor when I got over there. So he said “Look why don’t you try something.’ So I said, ‘Fine.’ And he put Bob Zemeckis on the phone and Bob said, ‘I’ve got this one scene with this guy and this girl and they’re running through a jungle and they’re swinging away with machetes at bamboo and the bad guys are shooting at them. Can you put together three minutes of that and be here for lunch tomorrow?’ I said, ‘What the hell do I have to lose?’ So I did this little demo. It was real makeshift with a LinnDrum and a DX7 and I didn’t even have any facilities at my house. I literally had the LinnDrum and I had an 8-track machine, but no board, no echo—nothing. And I put together a three minute Latin-flavored rhythm track. And I went in the next day to see the guys and that was it. They loved it! They signed me to do the picture the next day.”

In this story Silvestri illustrates the ability to do whatever is necessary to become a successful film composer. He was willing to try to put something together for the director overnight, with inadequate equipment. The director must have sensed his selfconfidence. It’s no surprise that most film composers have been interested in music most of their lives, whether rock and roll, classical music, jazz, or an eclectic mix. Howard Shore became interested in all kinds of music, and also the manipulation of sound, at an early age. “I grew up in the fifties, and it was the period of Hi Fidelity and stereo. Tape recorders were accessible to almost everybody. They didn’t cost that much. “And I had a library near me that had a wonderful collection of classical and popular music, and so as a kid, 10 or 11, I would go into this library and I would just pull out recordings of artists I didn’t know. Because I was just interested in music. And I had this wonderful source material right there. And they had everything categorized. And I started pulling out records of Takemitsu and Cage and David Tudor, and Stockhausen, and I would tape them cause I had my tape recorder and I would make my own edited versions of their stuff, and then I started to make my own tapes, to try to emulate them. When I was 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 I started playing my instruments and recording stuff and recording other pieces. The recorder had overdubbing, you know, sound on sound they called it back then, and I did that for years and years. So I’d actually built up a real early catalogue of samples and recordings. Naked Lunch was done in 1990, but there’s a recording that I made on my tape recorder in 1963 that’s in the film, part of a piece that I wrote. And I’ve actually been doing that for years. I mean, even in movies like The Cell, I would take a piece of music (and I did this very much also for Naked Lunch)—and it’s basically an electronic technique) I would overdub something else onto it.” Sometimes the most efficient way to prepare to be a pro is to study privately. During Craig Safan’s early days as a film composer, composer Fred Steiner led him to study conducting with Hans Beer. “I studied conducting with him for half a year. When I’d conduct I had very bad posture—I used to bend way over when I’d conduct. I was supposed to stand up straight. He would put me against the wall and say, “Now conduct in four,” and I would still bend over. So he went to his file cabinet and took out a ten-inch bayonet—a real bayonet—put it up against my chest, and said, “Now you vill conduct!” He was actually a perfect teacher for me—I can keep the orchestra together and hit all the streamers, 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 picture music. “Early in my career I just haunted all the stores. I used to buy every score. I had a huge collection of soundtrack albums, and I’d study everything—every score.” Like most film composers, Bill Conti has a very diversified background. He has a bachelors degree, two masters degrees, and a doctorate in music. But his studies and musical activities cover a wide range of interests and skills. “For my bachelor’s degree, I was on scholarship, but it was a bassoon scholarship. And was a keyboard and composition major. I went to Louisiana State, and then I went to Juilliard. At Juilliard I had to switch to composition. While I was getting all these degrees, I was working playing jazz at night, for about 15 years. So, the music turned me on in both areas [jazz and classical]. It was a background in all kinds of music.”

This background helped prepared Conti for film composition, but it was no guaranteed entrie into the business. Often it is the unexpected twist of fate that gets you started. “In Venice, 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 photographer from the film. So I’m sleeping on his couch and he is going off on a one day shoot for Harry and Tonto [1974]. He says, ‘Why don’t you give me a piece of music to bring to the cutter. I know the cutter; maybe he’ll slip it in during the dailies.’ I said, ‘But I don’t even have the script.’ ‘What do you need to know, it’s about an old man and a cat?’ ‘Well, man, I’m supposed to know more than that…’ Anyway, that day, as he was leaving, he forced me to improvise at the piano, just so he could bring a tape. He said, ‘You know, make it mellow, there’s an old man, there’s a cat, there’re no chases.’ So I did 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 come from?’ the editor said, ‘This guy…’ So, I told the director, ‘Well, look, I can really do you 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 the piano.’ 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 a funky recorder.’ He said, ‘Yea, but I cut my main title to it. And it feels so good.’ So my first shot, in terms of Hollywood, was this scratchy thin—I never heard of the movie, never read the script, the guy’s leaving for the plane in an hour, and I improvised about three or four minutes, and that’s what comes on the screen.” There are several other disciplines other than scoring for television and motion pictures that can provide excellent experience and training. John Powell started his career writing music for commercials, and stresses how helpful that experience was for him. “One of the things I enjoyed about doing jingles and the reason I would always recommend it to composers is that you get very varied requests. Today I might need to do something that’s a William Orbit style track and then tomorrow, ‘Can you do Greek?’ And you have high pressure deadlines. It is very different, you know. Coming out of doing 30 second, one minute tracks to doing Face/Off and doing two hours of music that had to link up in some way and have some kind of construction to it, it’s a terrible shock. You then have to sort of apply all these different muscles that are about, just being able to keep going. Stamina. And you suddenly realize how tough it is. I don’t know when, if ever, I’ll ever feel it’s not an exhausting process. “I did that from 1990 till ‘95, till I came out to Los Angeles, and I still did it a little bit while I was here, with ISDN lines. They used to send me the film as a Quick Time movie and I’d score it in a day. “I think it develops lots of good technique that’s really going to help you, everything from being with difficult clients to understanding what ‘Could it sound more like an avocado?’ means. The more you get into the difficulties of language and personalities and dealing with clients who are stressed and don’t really know quite what they want from the music and time pressures being put on that, budgetary issues, quick changes. And obviously things like failure and being cast over, having things being thrown out. It’s all a very good education. There’s obviously lots of stuff it’s not going to teach you, but how

else do you get that information? I’m sure some people are born just understanding the nature of film and how music should work with it. But I think for me it was a great training ground.” Mark Mancina found himself scoring trailers. “You know that was really, really good school work because what would happen is they’d give you a four minute big movie trailer, and within that four minutes you’d have to have themes and you’d have to develop your themes, you’d have to really run the scope of an entire score. I used to think that when I’d finish a trailer I only wished I was going to do that score because the amount of work that would go into all the thematic writing—that’s the work in doing a score. I would write my own themes and all my themes were original themes for myself for every trailer, and then, of course, somebody else would score it. I did some really successful trailers, and I got noticed from them, because people would want to know, ‘What is ‘Oh, it’s not from a movie, it’s a piece Mark Mancina wrote for this trailer’ and they’d go, ‘You’re kidding.’ One of the ones I did was Geronimo [1993]. The music for that trailer was really powerful, and I got so much work from that. It really kind of launched me. Then I did a movie called Monkey Trouble, which was a children’s movie, that Ridley Scott produced, and then right after that the director from Speed came to visit me and he had heard some of my work and wanted to take a chance on me doing his movie. On the trailers I didn’t have any orchestra—all synth on almost all of them. Once in a while we would go in and supplement if I had a choir or if I had string players, but not 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 because it was like doing an entire movie in four or five days, and working sixteen hours a day trying to get it done. But I realized then when I went on to big feature films that’s how you work. You don’t put in three hours a day. You work your butt off and that’s the way it is. So it was really, really good teaching.” Sean Callery’s pathway to scoring was far from predictable. He studied composition and graduated from the New England Conservatory with a major in piano performance. ‘I was at a trade show in 1987 wearing my alma pin, when the president of a company called 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 of those moments where you just know it had to happen even though you’re afraid of moving. So I lobbied very heavily for the position and I got it. And for the first six years in Los Angeles I learned the Synclavier Digital Audio Workstation, one of the very few devices in the late eighties that provided two things: it provided polyphonic sampling— only two products were doing that at the time, Fairlight and Synclavier. And it was also the first product to make available to the consumer hard disc recording, although it was prohibitively expensive. And to make that even more enticing, the sequencer and the hard disc recorder worked together. “So my job was basically to train, once a sale was made, people from all aspects of the industry, whether they were musicians like Chick Corea, or giving tech support to people like Stevie Wonder (one time). Then it became very clear in the late eighties that this product was also a very powerful sound effects tool. And eventually a dialogue editing tool. So the hard disc recorder and the sound effects part became a very large part of the company’s business. As a result I helped Mark Snow one day get sounds together for a

show that he was doing, and then I would fly up to Skywalker Sound and help train them on sound effects design, on the very same box.” Callery learned a lot about scoring films by being around these composers, and eventually got a job as a sound effects editor on “Star Trek.” “I sound-effects edited for about two and a half years, and I was basically working on a show that people like Dennis McCarthy and Jay Chataway were scoring, and so I got to sit on the mixing stage and I loved studying their work. I also learned very much about how the effects and the music worked together on the mixing stage. That led me to Mark Snow, who needed some arranging help with some sound design and I met him and I did some stuff for him and he saw that I had some ability and we became friends, and he became a mentor to me. And I was his apprentice. When I connected with Mark I was able to put down the sound effects work and exclusively focus on the writing. My first writing job was one that he helped me get which was for ‘La Femme Nikita’ on the USA Network. And that show ran for 4 1/2 seasons. And there I really cut my teeth on an hour long action series where schedules were very tight and I progressed from there into other projects.” In 2001 Callery began scoring the Fox series “24.” Just how the composer goes about scoring motion picture and television projects will be the focus of this text. When scoring any film, the composer has a responsibility to himself and to the filmmakers to provide the finest, most creative and artistically satisfying musical solution for the film. This requires a very fine balance between the client’s taste, the needs of the film, and the composer’s personal vision as a creative artist. Although personal experience will prove to be the best teacher in learning to achieve this goal, it is our hope that the reader will benefit from the combined experience of many of his colleagues and other members of the film community before he faces his first (or his next) scoring assignment.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK We have tried to make this book as practical, realistic, and upto-date as possible. Here are some suggestions for using it as a powerful learning tool:

Use the DVDs and Videocassettes In the text when we or those we are interviewing discuss specific film music, we are speaking about the way the music sounds in conjunction with the film. The text offers important information about the music and the film, but the reader needs to experience the cinematic effectiveness of the music to understand and feel its dramatic usage and function. If you are interested enough in film scoring to read this book, you will more than likely already be studying film music on video, in theaters, and on CDs. Most significantly in a study program, you cannot learn about film music without watching films to experience and understand the interaction of music and film. You will find a supplementary resource at the end of some chapters, “Scores for Study.” Some of these cited illustrations are discussed in the body of the chapter, while others are additional referrals for your study. They are not a survey of examples, but rather a representative sampling cited to illustrate specific aspects of film scoring.

Study the Films and Music Examples We recommend that you study the films and music examples along with this text. Screen two or three of the recommended titles at a time. The cues referred to are not recommended as the only possible musical solutions for each scene. They represent the release-print score, and as such they are valuable reference materials. Don’t ignore cues and scores (or films) you don’t like; there is a great deal to be learned from a cue that you believe doesn’t work, and every cue you study is an opportunity to observe your reaction to 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 the specific music cues in the films. Continue taking notes, as this will help you identify and understand your reactions. Most of the musical examples have been reduced from full score to short score or sketch format. All score reductions are in concert pitch, with as much information indicated as is practical. Although in some cases orchestrational touches (including electronic textures) have been omitted, all musical material is given that a composer would be most likely to include on his sketch. Most electronic elements are never written

down, and become very difficult to notate accurately after the score has been recorded and dubbed. When studying the score excerpts with picture, listen for electronic lines and colors not indicated on the score reductions provided here. Pages from full scores reprinted in the text are all in transposed pitch unless otherwise indicated on the score.

Add Your Own Music If you have a stereo VCR with two discrete inputs, you can add your own music to the second track of a film or television episode you have taped off the air. You will not be able to play dialogue and effects on the other track if a section of the film you wish to add music to is already scored, but you can add music to scenes that are not scored, or add music to a scene and play back for study without the original soundtrack.

Listen to the Soundtrack Albums Soundtrack albums are an unrealistic reference as a primary resource for studying film scoring because music in films is very nearly always competing with sound effects and dialogue; nonetheless there is great value in studying an album after studying the score as it plays in its film context, especially to appreciate the musical subtleties that may not be audible on the film soundtrack. This is the study of film music. Music included on the soundtrack album may not even be in the film, is sometimes abridged, or may be inaudible under sound effects or dialogue.

Read Other Books The bibliography includes a short list of selected books and periodicals. Reading the latest periodicals and trade papers is essential in order to keep informed of current developments, especially in electronic and contemporary scoring.

Use the Glossary All words set in boldface type can be located in the Glossary at the back of the book.

Practice the Math A guaranteed way to be clear about timing problems and film math is to work through the book’s practice problems in Chapters 8 and 9. A guaranteed way to be confused in this area is to skim those chapters without doing the problems. It takes practice to get a real understanding of the math, and handling these numbers can be confusing at first. Computer programs also need to be practiced.

Listen to Those Who Know The value of anyone’s opinions depends on his credibility. The 123 professionals interviewed 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 (see the 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 revealing the techniques and aesthetics of fine film scoring.

Preliminaries

1

I PRELIMINARIES

On the track

2

This page intentionally left blank.

Preliminaries

3

1 THE FILMMAKING TEAM If I were a composer I would always deal with the director—the 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 way—since I owned the film, that’s 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, “What’s that? I didn’t tell you to do that,” you’re in a lot of trouble. —Allyn Ferguson

ANY COMPOSER WHO SERIOUSLY wants to compose for films, and is intent on preparing himself for that work, needs to understand just how film scoring is done, from beginning to end. By the time he feels “ready” he should not only have studied composition and be able to write in a large variety of styles, but also have studied the best examples of film scoring and should have a background of practical local/regional studio work: albums, singles, commercials, concerts, and orchestration projects. He should know as much as possible about how the film industry works. To understand what it is like to work in this field and to know what is expected of him, he first needs to look at the actual process that a composer goes through in scoring a film, and to understand with whom he will be working on film projects. In presenting a comprehensive guide to film scoring in this book, we begin with the chronological 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

On the track

4

• Recording • Dubbing Then 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 the business.

MEETING THE FILMMAKERS The 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 a team effort, and the team includes many experts: actors, cameramen, designers, costumers, writers, recording technicians, dialect coaches, dancing coaches, specialeffects persons, sound-effects people, and many more. But the two who have the greatest influence on the musical style, tone, and attitude of the film—crucial factors of concern to the composer—are the director and the producer. Others who may directly influence the score’s outcome are the writer, the film editor, the music supervisor, the music executive, and the music editor. The first substantial talks about the film’s music will probably be with the director, at which time he may give the composer the script, screen an early cut of the film (formerly called a rough cut but typically referred to as a first cut), and/or discuss his ideas about the film and its musical needs. In the course of developing the score, the composer will encounter varying perceptions of what music is right for the film. These different ideas may 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 composer’s work. You must know who has the overall authority as well as the authority during each phase of your work. 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 company’s situation; and whether the music supervisor is employed by the production company on a freelance basis or is a salaried executive. Determine the Authority Don’t assume that all executive producers are the final authority. Most will defer to the director of a motion picture on most issues. The director of a television miniseries or made-for-television film will normally make

Preliminaries

5

most of the post-production decisions. Some executive producers may not even come to the scoring session, but will exercise final approval over all aspects of dubbing including final music volume levels, placement of a cue (or score) in the film, the relationship between music and sound effects, and other creative details. Like every other aspect of the filmmaking process, it is not always easy to determine who is in charge because there are no absolute rules. Astonishing as it may seem, the power structure sometimes changes over the course of the project, and the composer has to rely on his powers of observation to determine what each person’s function on a project truly is.

THE DIRECTOR What the director is hearing and feeling is to be respected at all costs. —Bill Conti

I’ve learned never to say things like “I hear a music box.” I wouldn’t dream of telling any distinguished composer exactly how to do his work. —John Erman, Director

The director is responsible for envisioning and/or approving all creative decisions and overseeing all creative activities on a film, relegating duties to specialists in charge of each area (including composing, editing, sound effects, dialogue looping, and remixing), but these trained professionals are functioning as the director’s representatives, fulfilling his wishes and realizing his vision. The decisions made by the director are not necessarily unilateral, as he often works very closely with the producer, editor, and the other creative artists. In a television series, the producer may be responsible for many of the creative decisions; in these cases, the producer is really functioning as a codirector, so the following points relate to the television producer as well. What the Director Expects from the Music Directors want the score to reflect and emotionally enhance their idea of what the film is about. The director wants the score to reflect the values, texture, and central idea of the film as he sees it. Maurice Jarre defines this as the distinction between concert music and film scoring: “I must say, my philosophy is really the philosophy of the director. And the only thing you have to do, you have to use your imagination and your talent or your technique to satisfy his ideas. When you are doing music for a film, you have to understand it’s just a part of the film, and you are not going to write the masterpiece of your life; if it’s a masterpiece you are lucky, because you are part of a masterpiece which has been made basically by the director.” Like many directors, Oliver Stone (who directed Nixon [1995] and JFK [1991]) looks

On the track

6

for a dramatic theme (that is, a literary concept). A film’s dramatic theme can be defined by describing what it is really about. The theme may not be obvious to the composer on first viewing, so it is always a good idea to encourage a discussion about this significant issue. As Stone says, “Writing music is much like writing a movie—you wrestle with the theme. 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 theme—the passage of innocence.” The Score’s Function Determining the function of music in a film is the single most important decision or group of decisions the composer will make, because these decisions affect the very nature of the score; its style, musical idiom, and harmonic language, as well as the outer limits of conservatism or creative freedom. On the surface, determining the score’s function may seem easy, but understanding what the director wants and what the film needs can be difficult. The director’s 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 the screen—to deepen it, to reinforce it, and not necessarily to comment on it externally. You are trying to get inside the scene. So the music becomes a part of it, not an addition to it. I don’t like music to be outside; I don’t like doing the score externals. I don’t like the score walking or crying or scoring car chases. That’s boring. I’d rather get down into the visceral essence of what the chase is about and capture that element, capture the heartbeat of the chase, capture the life and death aspects of the chase. There are all these emotional colors that music can express so well, rather than just the visual excitement of a lot of tires screeching and car crashes, which can become so melodramatic. I like films where the score is very definitely pushed inside, capturing the dark corners, the landscape of the mind. I think that’s where the director and composer have a very intimate relationship, in defining that and translating it into musical terms.” The Director/Composer Relationship Some directors are screamers; others are soft-spoken and understated; still others have more variable personalities, and you never know what their response will be to a particular situation. The ideal atmosphere is one in which communication is open, reflecting mutual respect and thoughtfulness. The late Alex North, when describing his longtime relationship with director John Huston, recognized that the director who inspires a composer’s confidence creates a mutually beneficial partnership: “Huston was a very musical and all-around creative guy, who gave the composer trust in attempting a certain unorthodox 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: “I’m a believer in what they call in psychological terms Validation.’ And I think the worst thing you can possibly do to a composer is say, ‘Well, that’s all wrong.’ Because it isn’t all wrong. It’s just not what you had in your head. But it’s what he had in his head and maybe you hadn’t communicated what you had in your head. So what I try to do is

Preliminaries

7

first say all the good things I feel about the cue. And then say, ‘In these ways, I don’t feel the cue fulfills my notion of what this scene is about.’ That way, the composer doesn’t get his feelings hurt, doesn’t feel let down or put down, because the moment you feel put down, it just stifles your creative impulses. And particularly when the poor composer has to redo his cue right there, because generally that’s what happens when we do these television movies. There isn’t time to say, ‘Go away, and two weeks from now we’ll get all these musicians back.’ Usually I will just say things like ‘I feel you’re overstating the music; the scene doesn’t need that much.’ Or, in contrast, I have often said, ‘I didn’t accomplish everything I wanted in this scene. What can you do to help me give this character a little more heart?’ Or whatever. And I’m always thrilled at the way a composer reacts to that. That’s just human nature.” In general, the connection between director and composer described by North and Erman is ideal, and will invariably serve the film well. Danny Elfman presents a similar ideal from the composer’s viewpoint: “If they want to get a really good score, they have to allow me to stretch out. If they’re really nervous about everything all the time, I’m going to have to contain myself and they are not going to get my best work…” Sometimes Directors Don’t Want What They Say They Want David 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 to let me know that he was not about to have ‘any of that Hollywood music’ in his picture. What he wanted was ‘something different, really powerful—like Wozzeck.’ To hear the magic name of Alban Berg’s operatic masterpiece correctly pronounced was to doubt the evidence of my ears; here was a nonmusician who was not only aware that Wozzeck existed but actually thought of his film as one for which so highly expressive a musical style 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 was the way things ought to be: I liked his script, I admired him, and I couldn’t wait to hear what he had to say and to get working on musical material for the score. Suddenly irritable, he said, ‘What’s that crap you’re playing?’ That crap,’ I replied, ‘is Wozzeck’” Many Times They Do Want What They Say They Want This is true not only with regard to the overall concept, style, and dramatic approach of the score, but often with very specific details as well. Just how a particular dramatic moment 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 recently did the director came over about once a week to hear cues, and there were a couple of cues with flute and by the time he heard the second cue with flute and he said he didn’t like the flute, it was like, ‘You know, I think I pretty much don’t like flute.’ And I said, ‘Okay. So noted.’” Mockups give the director the opportunity to respond specifically to orchestrational detail prior to scoring, which is helpful.

On the track

8

As an orchestrator, Mark McKenzie also has experienced directors’ reactions to a specific instrument. “Tim Burton has become much more finely tuned as to what he’s asking for. For example, on Planet of the Apes [2001], he just said, ‘I don’t like trumpets.’ So the note was, ‘We’re not using trumpets.’ And you think, ‘Well, he doesn’t really know what he’s saying,’ but actually he does. It is bizarre, you know, but on Sleepless in Seattle [1993] with Marc Shaiman, Nora Ephron didn’t want harp glisses. It was very specific and it was a very romantic film and it was like, ‘What do you mean you don’t want harp and harp glisses?’” But there is no absolute definition of “romantic” music for films. If twelve composers each write a romantic cue for twelve different films, you’re going to get a lot of different takes on the meaning of romantic: everything from Randy Edelman’s music for two dogs in Beethoven’s 2nd (1993) to Shaiman’s score for The American President (1995) to John Barry’s music accompanying the exploits of James Bond. Insecurities The director often suffers from some amount of anxiety during the weeks when the composer is writing the score. Historically speaking, no aspect of the movie-making phase can cause more anxiety for the filmmakers, because in the past they couldn’t become 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 Motion Picture and Television Music, MGM/UA, stresses this concern: “Directors are very insecure. And also, music is the last element that’s added to the film, and it could be disastrous. It is important that the director feel confident that the composer he has selected 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 shooting the film.” Now, with synth mockups of the score being commonplace, most of this anxiety is a thing of the past. Nonetheless, the composer must be aware of the director’s need for reassurance. Communication is essential, and this will be discussed further as we look at the process of scoring a film. The director’s vision—and confidence in it—can help the composer handle this difficult period. Considering his relationship with M.Night Shyamalan when they worked together on The Sixth Sense (1999), James Newton Howard learned that the director trusted his film. “He made a very quiet picture. And it allowed me to write very quiet music for woodwind ensemble, for instance, that I never could have done in a typical thriller movie. And something that is enormously valuable to a composer is to have a confident director. This is what I like, here’s the space that I need you to occupy,’ and he sticks 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 can’t verbalize what they want.

Preliminaries

9

—Burt Bacharach

If a director says, “Oh, that temp music sounds perfect,” and you have a better idea—well, you ‘d better blow him out of the saddle if he’s already happy with something. —Bill Conti

Words used to describe music have different meanings for different people. That’s why composers and filmmakers so frequently communicate by referencing music and playing mockups; how they do this is the subject of Chapter 3. In most cases, though, meetings and discussions precede the music. Sometimes the director can be very specific about his wishes. When you’re using music to communicate, you can get very definitive responses from the director. But when the talk turns technical, don’t assume the director has mastered the language of music, no matter how basic. Maurice Jarre tells this cautionary tale: “One day a director said, ‘You know, Maurice, I would like to have the clarinet playing that.’ So I said, ‘Fine. I can give the clarinet that melody.’ When we went to the recording session he said, ‘But I thought you told me you were going to do this theme here with the clarinet.’ I said, ‘Yes, it’s played by the clarinet.’ ‘No, no, it’s not the clarinet, it’s not the sound of a clarinet.’ I said, ‘Look, it’s a clarinet player.’ And after that he didn’t say anything. And so then the oboe played, and he said, That’s it, that’s the clarinet.’” If such specific words can fail us, how can we possibly hope to discuss the more significant, elusive issues of concept and design? Mark Mancina expresses the frustration of many composers who try to discuss their ideas with the filmmakers. “It’s always the old cliché, that the composer can say to the director, ‘What do you want to feel? How do you want to feel? What do you want from the music here?’ But when you ask a director that, there’s only a limited amount of words that they generally will say—‘Momentum,’ or ‘Emotion,’ or ‘Drive,’—and what do those things mean? They can mean different things. You can drive with the cello. You can drive with percussion. You can drive with a synth.” 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. “I’ve seen directors and composers sit there and both be really clear that there was an emotion that they were looking for that a film conveyed. And then it’s wonderful. And I’ve also been in places where you can see two people talking and you know that there’s going to be trouble down the line. And sometimes [as a music editor] you can do something about it and sometimes you can’t.” Directors Communicate Their Dramatic Vision Some of the most effective directors communicate most successfully with composers in terms of the drama. What does the film mean to them? What does the scene mean to them? Through describing their vision of the film and the drama, they hope to convey their vision of the score and its role in their film.

On the track

10

Elmer Bernstein’s description of his experience with director John Sturges while scoring The Magnificent Seven (1960) shows how effective a communication tool dramatic references can be. “He would tell you the story of the film before you ever saw the script, just tell you the story. But the telling had such enthusiasm and such love and such excitement that it was terrifically stimulating. By what he was telling you and the way he told you, he was defining the character of the film, and to a large extent the delineation of the main characters in the film. You would not be in doubt as to what he was looking for, what the dramatic content of the film was.” Individual scenes can be discussed in much the same way. Director Richard Michaels describes his work method: “I communicate with a composer pretty much the same way I do with actors. And that is in the sense of the feeling of the scene. Rarely, if ever, do I give actors instruction on how to read the line. Usually, I find the way to reach them is to tell them what the scene feels like, what it is about. I try to do the same thing with composers. It’s a feeling that I want to come out of a scene.” If he’s ever musically descriptive, “that’s my way of saying what the sense of the scene should be and what it should communicate to the audience.” He doesn’t mean to be taken literally if he says, “It kind of feels like a lonely piano here.” Directors Communicate Their Musical Vision Sometimes the director has already decided on a musical approach to scoring his film. More often than not the film’s temp track will reflect many of the director’s musical wishes (see Chapter 3). Sometimes the director’s musical visions can be confusing, as Mark Mancina discovered while working on Training Day (2001). “During the big chase sequence, one of the things that Antoine [Fuqua] kept saying to me was he really wanted to do it like a Bernard Herrmann score. And I wrote a really interesting thing that I think was great. And he didn’t like it at all, because he didn’t really want that. He just didn’t know that he didn’t want that. You know, in his head, ‘I love that Hitchcock thing,’ but when you give him that Hitchcock thing he’s, ‘No, I don’t really like that, that’s too dissonant and it doesn’t have any theme.’ ‘Well, yeah.’ So, that didn’t work and we ended up doing something else that was really pretty interesting, pretty edgy and had a lot of tension to it.” In this case, it was music that led them both to a successful musical solution for the scene. The Composer Describes His Musical Vision The 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 the composer’s job on a film is you have to come in with a point of view. It can’t be the director’s point of view, because you can’t do a direct secretarial job of the director’s point of view. They have to morph into each other.” With temp tracks and mockups on almost every film, this is an extremely important consideration. Time and again the composer will find himself in a situation in which he will be asked by the director to do certain things musically. These may relate to specific moments in a film or may be more

Preliminaries

11

general in character, including adopting a specific musical approach or style for the entire film. You must satisfy the director, but there may be other, sometimes even better ways to accomplish the director’s goals. Zimmer continues: “With Ridley Scott [with whom Zimmer has worked on a number of films, including Gladiator (2000) and Thelma and Louise (1991)], he never tells me what to do. Which is I think a very European thing. He expects me to come to the movie with what I think I should be doing. In other words, I take on the director’s job at that point. He’s not going to go and muck around in my stuff because he wants something that he can’t imagine.”

SUPPORT AND GUIDANCE I have been ready to abandon ideas when a director will step up and say, “No, don’t be so quick to move away from that. There’s something really good there.” —James Newton Howard

There are times throughout scoring a film when the composer doesn’t yet have the answer to particular creative questions. At those times, working with a sympathetic director can be particularly helpful. Harry Gregson-Williams describes how Tony Scott encouraged and inspired him when he was scoring Spy Game (2001): “If one’s playing a cue back for the first time to him, it’s a ten minute action thing, or something that goes through a lot of moods and perhaps I’ve spent several days and nights working on it so it’s really a critical moment to play this back and judge his reaction, he would always say, ‘Great, H., fantas-tic!’ You know, he’d always be encouraging first and foremost. That’s fantastic! Now, listen. Let’s go back here, it’s a little dark here,’ and then we’d get into it. He always made me feel like he was encouraging me.” Sometimes the director’s willingness to share the composer’s anguish as he thrashes out 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 President’s Men (1976), a docudrama that was difficult to score. When Pakula came over to Shire’s studio and listened to his piano improvisations it jump-started Shire’s creative process and gave him the breakthrough he needed to come up with the right material. Robert Mulligan gave James Newton Howard a different kind of support on The Man in the Moon (1991). “One of the best things a director can do for a composer is recognize when it’s right. You know, sometimes when a composer doesn’t. And I’ve had that experience happen many times on films.” This kind of guidance can help shape a score and bring it to a new level. Many composers have experienced this, including Jerry Goldsmith when he was working with Paul Verhoeven on Basic Instinct (1992). On that film, the director was able to single out a moment Goldsmith considered relatively unimportant in his score and identify it as the music he had written that summed up the film. It became the main theme, first heard over the main titles (see Figure 14.4).

On the track

12

TWO-WAY DIALOGUE BETWEEN DIRECTOR AND COMPOSER The director and composer communicate on various levels, depending on the circumstances. Here are some possibilities: 1. The director and composer work together We have already seen how well this works. There can be a real exchange of ideas between the director and the composer, creating a fruitful relationship. This works best when everybody involved is able to sacrifice his own ego to the higher benefit of the project, and less successfully when the composer worries about whether an idea originates with him or the director. “I view Jerry Goldsmith as the director of the music and when it comes to the music he’s co-directing the film with me,” says Rod Lurie, who directed The Last Castle (2001). “I tell him what I’m looking for and he tells me how to do it. I come up with the strategy, he comes up with the tactics. It’s essential and that communication is essential.” 2. The director and composer disagree Sometimes the director worries about the score being too big or too small, too loud or too soft, too contemporary or too traditional. Bill Conti’s experience on The Right Stuff (1983) is not uncommon. Director Philip Kaufman wanted his film to project the feeling of the people and their personal stories. But the story was the epic story of the American space race. “It had scope to it,” says Conti. “And I saw rockets taking off. So the director and 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 didn’t know how to play rockets going off and circling the moon with just a guitar. So I went for big, and then sometimes he said, ‘I think the music is making it too big.’ And I kept saying, ‘But it’s the history of the American space program. Your people are real, you’ve made a great film, but I don’t know how to handle the big moments in a small way. I think it would take away from the film.’ So we’d disagree. And he admitted he was intimidated by music. He said that. And brass made him think of the military. So I tried to change the score and tried to make it smaller and smaller. It was a struggle.” It is much more common to have the big/small problem with a film lacking the huge scope and epic size of The Right Stuff. Thomas Newman and director Sam Mendes looked for just the right size score for Road to Perdition (2002). “One of the talks was about the very opening bike ride,” says Newman, “and I think when Sam had started thinking 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 the movie.’ And [music editor] Bill Bernstein and I both disagreed with that because we thought it was one of the few moments in the movie where you could justifiably have pace and tempo. And ultimately I think he agreed with that, but late in the game I had written this piece, the piece that you hear, although there was a B section and he said, ‘You know what? I don’t like it and I wish there could be more orchestra somehow in

Preliminaries

13

those sections.’ “So I remember, as he comes over the hill on his bike we had put some string chords in above a kind of guitar ambience and we broke into the Uilleann pipes theme, and then in the B section I rewrote and went to a much larger scale. And I had to agree it was a better piece, and I thought he was utterly right in terms of establishing the yin and the yang of your sense of scale. That here’s propulsion and intimacy on the one hand and here’s a larger palette on the other. For the A and B sections. And I ended up liking it much better than the piece that I had written originally. It convinced me that Mendes was ingenious in the way he crystallizes in his process. The closer he gets to completion the more he seems to know what his movie is.” In any case, the best time to deal with these concerns is before scoring, not during or after. This is the time during which more can be communicated than simply themes and ideas. “I think the directors and producers, a lot of them are very good in seeing through how much you feel about something,” says Trevor Rabin. “So I think honesty is such an important element of it. Because I’ve seen that missing, and having spoken to people, there is a tendency for some people just to say, ‘Oh, I’ll do something else, I don’t care,’ and I never look at it like that. Every movie to me is like doing a Yes album, which was always the most important thing I was doing at the time.” 3. The composer adapts the director’s idea James Newton Howard has found that working with M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense [1999], Unbreakable [2000] and Signs [2002]) is always stimulating. The director doesn’t want a particular style but rather a uniqueness. “The simpler the idea the happier I think Night would be, so there was a lot of writing, sending demos, rewriting, ‘No, that’s not quite right, I kind of like this, you still haven’t found the Sixth Sense theme.’ He finally sent me an e-mail something to the extent of, “Think of the Sixth Sense theme as something living, some feral energy that sort of moves unnoticed invisibly from room to room.” The director still didn’t feel they had discovered the main theme for the movie when the two of them met at Howard’s studio and listened to the cue for the scene when Cole exits the church after meeting Malcolm (Bruce Willis). “He looked at me and he said, ‘You know, that’s it. I’ve been hearing it and you’re just sort of blowing right by it. This is what I love, can you do something more with this?’ And so I took that, and that, in fact, became the Sixth Sense theme. That has happened virtually every time we’ve worked together, where he will recognize something in what I’ve written that I don’t, and request that I pursue an area that I really quite frankly don’t believe in. In two of the three cases I ended up thinking he was completely right about that, serving the picture well.” The composer might also use the director’s ideas in a different way than originally suggested. When the late John Addison scored Sleuth (1972), director Joseph Mankiewicz had the idea that the character played by Lawrence Olivier had been intellectually trapped in the thirties. “He was living in the past in his country house in the world of those Agatha Christie detective stories. He therefore thought that the music should have a very strong thirties flavor. And that was something I had to discuss with him a lot, because, in fact, that was going to limit me.” The theme for Michael Caine’s

On the track

14

character, and other music Addison was thinking about for the film, was not at all thirties in flavor, and he didn’t feel it should be. But he kept the director’s idea in mind, and eventually realized that the authentic pop tunes of the thirties would be a perfect accompaniment to the long sequence in the middle of the film that functioned as the equivalent of the act break in the original play. “It worked very, very well there, because it was scored with source music coming from his phonograph. And it was completely different from the rest of the score, so it made a wonderful contrast at that point.” 4. The director edits the film to suit the music Occasionally, the director is moved and influenced by the music and makes adjustments to the film to accommodate it. Ridley Scott edited segments of the fighting sequences in Gladiator (2000) to Hans Zimmer’s music. When Isaac Hayes was scoring Shaft (1971), Gordon Parks received tapes of the cues as he went along: “The more I heard, the more excited I got. I sometimes cut something to fit his music. There were times when I wished I had done something different in the film to go along with the music. And there were times when I said, ‘Wow, I wish I had something here to fit this in—how can we use this?’” 5. The composer asks questions The composer should ask the director questions to probe the emotional meaning of the film and of the individual sequences being scored. Avoid asking too many specific technical 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 in major or minor?” is not. On the other hand, with some directors, you can’t go too far wrong as long as you talk about the drama. Director John Erman recalls his collaboration with Marvin Hamlisch on the 1984 television film of Streetcar Named Desire: “He was the most inquisitive composer I’ve ever worked with. He would literally call me up and say, ‘What exactly do you 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 he’d say, ‘I’ve got it.’ And then he would work on it and then he would call me up almost every day while he was writing the score. And he would always play me themes, and he would say, ‘Is this exactly what you have in your head?’ And if I said, ‘No,’ then, ‘Well, how does it differ from what you want? Or what you hear? Or from what you envision?’” Some composers are concerned about working too closely with the director, fearing that it will be a time-consuming and fragmented process. Others feel they will end up in the uncomfortable position of depending on the musical insight of someone who may have no (or very limited) musical background and possibly unsophisticated musical instincts. Often, composers are protective of their creative independence, and are leery of becom

Preliminaries

15

James Horner, Harve Bennett, Leonard Nimoy (foreground) during the scoring of Star Trek III (1984). Mixer Dan Wallin, far left; music editor Bob Badami, far right. In booth at Record Plant Scoring Stage M. ing solely a mirror image of the director’s wishes; they worry that it may limit their creative input. All of these concerns are genuine and should be considered. In general, though, each composer must ultimately rely on his own good taste and dramatic sense to fit the needs of the film and the director.

THE PRODUCER Executive producer; line producer; coproducer; supervising producer; assistant producer—there are dozens of titles designating members of the producing team. Their titles are not as important as their function and responsibility. You must determine what or whom are they responsible for. The producer’s chief function as a filmmaker is to develop and nurture a project from beginning to end. To do this successfully, he must select the proper writer to create the ideal script, select the appropriate director, and work with the director in selecting all of the creative and technical talent necessary to produce a film. An associate producer often takes care of many of the production details, but the producer may hire someone else as well to follow through on many of the day-to-day tasks that come up during production, including supervision of the shooting of the film. This person may be called the line producer, and the producer may consequently become the executive producer. As a businessman, the producer is responsible for raising the money to produce the film, and/or selling the project to a network, studio, or production company. But there are no absolute definitions that prescribe exactly how much emphasis any individual producer may place on his various creative and financial responsibilities.

On the track

16

Creative Producers One way to determine whether a producer is creative is to listen and observe him. The creative producers will be the ones presenting and discussing creative issues. They will be interested in the creative process and eager to hear your solutions. They will be willing to agonize with you a bit if the right musical solution doesn’t present itself immediately; they can empathize with your situation because they too are constantly making creative decisions. Most truly creative professionals are wary of quick, slick answers. Some producers, however, may not be looking for the composer’s creative input, and may in fact hire the composer to help realize their own creative decisions. Jerry Bruckheimer is a producer who is very involved with the music. Trevor Rabin has worked with him many times. “On Con Air [1997] Jerry just did everything. [Director] Simon West really had very little input. It was welcomed but not much came in, and he pretty much left it to Jerry. With Armageddon [1998] Michael Bay had certain areas which he had to have a certain way. There were three key themes I wrote for the movie, and he’d say, ‘I want that theme here, I want that theme there,’ and aside from that Jerry would be the guy who signed off on things, although I must say Michael was definitely involved.” It was Bruckheimer who did the detail work with Rabin on each cue. “Jerry’s very good with music.” Concept and overall approach will be discussed, and they will probably want to hear the musical theme(s). Once the suggestions are made, expect an open give-and-take dialogue. Executive Producers The executive producer may exercise final control over all creative elements, even though he isn’t necessarily involved on a daily basis. He is often responsible for business administration and decision making, and may be chief executive of the production company. He may also be a creative producer; that could be the reason he is president of the company. Those producers who are strictly involved with the financial and business side of production will usually (but not always) try to stay clear of the creative discussions, or at most will oversee these meetings, checking to see that they have taken place and so on. Producers without Strong Music Backgrounds Sometimes a producer may want to guide the composer, although he really doesn’t have the background for it. His language may reveal his weakness in this area. Variations of the old cliché are still heard: “I don’t know anything about music, but I know what I like.” When a composer finds himself working with this kind of producer, he may be able to achieve an open, two-way exchange of ideas by using musical examples (classical or contemporary music, music from around the world in various styles, other film scores, or the composer’s music). If he is comfortable asking the producer, “Do you like this? Do you like that?” he may be able to establish a very good dialogue about the score. Musical demonstration is a must in these cases, and using your own music is a wise choice when

Preliminaries

17

possible.

THE PRODUCER’S POWER Everyone agrees that power is vested differently in television than it is in feature films. In features, the director usually prevails in creative decisions, including those involving the music. There may be an honest, three-way dialogue between the composer, producer, and director, but in many cases a two-to-one vote against the director won’t overrule his wishes. In a weekly television series, on the other hand, it is the producer who makes the music decisions, because the producer sets the deals with the network, develops the project, and then guides it to completion. The directors may have moved on to another project by the time the composer begins a television score. This is less so with television films and miniseries, but there have been times when a composer never met the director of a television film and worked only with the producer.

COMMUNICATING WITH THE PRODUCER Many times the producer will have an idea of what he feels the score should be. He may describe this in general terms (“contemporary,” “romantic and lush,” “edgy and hardhitting”), dramatic terms (“violent,” “sentimental” or “nonsentimental,” “epic”), or more specifically, in musical terms (“contemporary jazz,” “bluesy,” “country”). He may offer these ideas as a point of discussion, or he may ask for the score to be written according to his description. In either case he will want to know that you agree with his approach. If you don’t agree, suggest one or more alternative approaches and be prepared to demonstrate your ideas with music. Following the Producer’s Suggestions The producer’s suggestions may be very helpful, but it can be a major mistake to try to re-create in your score exactly what you think he wants. Duplicating his musical description is not a foolproof method of successfully scoring a film. During the height of popularity of the classic television series “Hawaii Five-0,” a producer said to the composer of his new pilot, “I want the theme to be bouncy. I want it bouncy like ‘Hawaii Five-0’—jazzy.” The composer, aiming to please, wrote “bouncy.” The opening shots were of a small charter plane taxiing down a dirt runway. The plane was bouncing, the pilot was bouncing, the music was bouncing—everything was bouncing! The producer hated it. He had given the composer an ill-advised directive that he later regretted. Director John Erman once heard a producer literally destroy a composer by saying, “I don’t want any violins, I don’t want any piano, and I hear only woodwinds.” Erman explains that “this composer (who was very distinguished) was saying, ‘Yes. Alright. I can do that for you.’ And of course the score was finished and the producer, who was fairly new at the game, said to me, ‘I’m so disappointed in the score. It’s just not at all what I’d hoped for.’ And I said, ‘Because you hamstrung him.’”

On the track

18

If the producer insists on his musical direction, it’s going to be very difficult to convince him that your approach is better without demonstrating your ideas. Well-crafted mockups are a must in such cases (see Chapter 7).

THE FILM EDITOR I say, “We can always add, we can always trim it. We have a nice, extremely well-put-together piece of film—let’s wait for music.” —John Burnett, Film Editor

I’ve been pleasantly surprised with music so many times. On the other side of the coin, you do a show and you have a main title that really needs the music and a guy doesn’t do it and then you go right down the toilet. I mean, you die. —John Martinelli, Film Editor

The Editor’s Responsibilities The film editor, working with all of the director’s print takes of each shot, intercuts this footage into a homogenous whole. He works with tens of thousands of feet of film at the outset and collaborates with, and takes his instructions from, the director. Editors often work on a project from the beginning of shooting. Editor John Martinelli finds that “you’re always a tight-knit family, or at least I’ve always been; the way I work I’m always a part of the picture from day one.” Because of this he is often able to make creative contributions to the filmmaking process. The Editor as Intermediary The editor almost always follows a project through scoring and dubbing and usually supervises the lab work on the final answer print. Because he is one of the few members of the creative team with this kind of continuity on a project, and because he has so much insight into the director’s vision of the film, he may have a considerable amount of authority and responsibility on the dubbing stage. Because of his close communication with the director or producer, he can be an excellent liaison between them and the composer. This is extremely important if the schedule is very tight and people are difficult to reach, or if there is a misunderstanding that needs clarification. The editor and his assistant(s) can often help coordinate logistical matters like the ongoing duplication and delivery of video copies to the composer. They are the first to know about any schedule changes. A sympathetic editor can be an excellent sounding board, listening to a theme, perhaps, or discussing a difficulty in the production schedule. It helps for the composer to develop a good working relationship with the editor when possible. The editor is also an excellent liaison between the composer and the sound-effects

Preliminaries

19

people, and may be the ideal person with whom to discuss the blending of sound effects and music prior to and during scoring and dubbing. Naturally, these issues should first be discussed with the director, but the editor can help coordinate their execution. When possible, it is also advisable to stay in touch with the person in charge of sound effects. Adding Music The editor also is likely to know a great deal about the director’s thoughts on the use of music in his film. As a rule he’ll have his own ideas as well, sometimes clearly defined by the inclusion of temp tracks prepared by him or the music editor for early screenings or previews. He will often be called upon (or may take it upon himself) to add some music here and there to the film’s soundtrack for this purpose, especially in the earlier stages of editing. He may do this himself, or he may help coordinate the music editor’s efforts to be sure the director is satisfied with the results. Editing to Music Editors are sharply divided on the virtues of actually cutting film to music during the early editing process. Those who do, claim that they are able to achieve a better sense of pacing and mood by letting an appropriate piece of music guide their editing instincts. They usually choose the music themselves. If the director hears how well it works and likes it enough, this music may find its way onto the temp track. Or, if it is being used strictly as an editing guide track, it may never be heard by anyone other than the editor. The tempo of this guide track may or may not have any direct effect on the composer or the final tempo of the cues. If the film editor specifically cuts to a certain tempo in order to sync a sequence of fast cuts, possibly for a main title or a montage sequence, the relationship between the temp music and film will be more pronounced. In these cases, the editor or music editor will give the composer either the guide track or the tempo, or both, so the composer can exactly duplicate the tempo to which the film was edited. Those editors who don’t like to use music during the editing process believe that the film has its own independent rhythm and flow, best achieved without the external influence of music. In the words of director Paul Wendkos: “I like to be free of the beat of the music. I want to find a visual rhythm and then get music to support that, rather than the other way around.” This is also how editors John Martinelli and John Burnett work.

THE MUSIC EDITOR The job of the music editor is to provide spotting and timing notes for each cue when/as requested by the composer; prepare the videotape or digital video with visual aids such as punches, streamers, and any special click layouts that may be required to assist the conductor at the recording sessions; monitor the recording sessions; provide clicks and other conducting aids as necessary to ensure correct timings; prepare the music for dubbing; attend the final audio mix on the dubbing stage; assist in any adjustments or changes that may be requested at any stage; and keep detailed notes on the whole process.

On the track

20

There may be a supervising music editor, who is the person most responsible for the music editing on the project. The music is typically recorded directly onto hard disc or transferred on hard disc into Pro Tools or some other similar format. This allows the music editor to prepare the music for each reel so that all tracks are in sync with the film. Prior to or during dubbing, the music editor may have inserted music into the previously prepared tracks to clean up a section, to add or subtract music for sync purposes, or to substantially change a cue. When Pro Tools is used on the scoring stage it may be operated by the music editor or by another technician in the recording booth. Current technology has been generally beneficial for the art and craft of music editing. Jeff Charbonneau, speaking for all music editors, says the technology offers “the ease of being able to make really good edits and really good crossfades and having a flexibility which wasn’t there before on film. The advent of digital has opened up the turf so you can really go in and make some beautiful edits and experiment quite a bit with things until it all works out very well and then do your own little submix and bring it to the stage ready to go. It saves everybody a lot of time and you get some very high quality stuff as opposed to, ‘Oh, well let’s just take those 12 bars from this and flop it in over there.’” The music editor is frequently the composer’s representative with the filmmakers. There are two critical times when they may serve this function: first, during the creation of the temp track (see Chapter 3); and second, during dubbing. Graeme Revell points out that “they can convince the director that we don’t have to go back and rescore, that this works fine.” Directors may be concerned that the music will not be able to be edited properly and smoothly enough to suit the purpose, but available technology can frequently accommodate formerly difficult or even impossible changes. Ideally, music editors come to their jobs with strong musical sensibilities. Although they may be musically trained, music editor Daniel Allan Carlin says, “I am not convinced that the study of music is necessary to be a well-trained music editor.” He believes a strong intuitive sense is probably more valuable than academic training, which can at times lead to the right intellectual ideas utilized in the wrong way. “What’s more important for a good music editor is the ability to deal under pressure with people who can get crazy. Almost anybody can cut from a beat to a beat. And anybody can lay in the music. That’s not the trick. The trick is that in the back of our minds we know that you’ve written this score, and we are under an obligation to maintain its integrity as best we can while dealing with film and music changes.” Under the right circumstances a fine music editor can bring a great deal to a project for the composer. Hans Zimmer describes his relationship with music editor Bob Badami as a true collaboration. “I absolutely see him as my coproducer, in the record sense. Because, I mean, he brings a point of view to it. He steers me into directions I never would have gone in. He’s completely inspiring. He isn’t a guy that just cuts the stuff in, you know, there’s a whole other artistry at work.”

Preliminaries

21

Bob Badami. On Black Hawk Down (2001), Zimmer relied on Badami and his technology to realize his concept for the score. The composer knew he would be on a very tight schedule, and he decided on an unusual approach. He realized, “I can either go very safe and just repeat myself, or we can just literally throw all caution to the wind, and make it this huge sort of music concrete experiment.” He chose the more adventurous course of action. “I said to Bob and Marc Streitenfeld, ‘Okay, we aren’t just going to feed you guys music. We’re going to give you these sometimes twenty minute tracks. And use that technology, use Pro Tools, go and hack around in it,’ and we had made a very elaborate sort of grid of tempi and keys, etc., the half speed and the triplet value of it, so that the music could go from one to the other” (see Chapter 6 for more about Black Hawk Down). The music editor is available throughout the composer’s assignment to help him with any technical matters that may arise. For example, if the composer wants help in selecting an appropriate click for a cue, the music editor can suggest one based on the composer’s approximate tempo. More elaborately, if the composer is working on a cue that requires various tempo changes, with slight gradations of tempo slower and faster, the music editor can help him achieve the accuracy he wishes. If there is on-screen dancing or a marching band moving in tempo, the music editor will determine the most compatible tempo as a specific click and then create a click track for the entire sequence if necessary. Ken Wannberg works very closely with John Williams during the period when Williams is composing: “We have a bungalow at Amblin, which is fantastic, and he writes in his room, he comes in, we’ll look at something, he’ll go back and he’ll come back, and that’s the way it goes all day long. And it’s great.”

On the track

22

Bruce Broughton recognizes the music editor as an important ally, someone to talk to and rely upon. “My feeling about music editors is that they’re the only other people who understand what it is that we do. And you can’t talk to the director or producer first on the scoring stage. You have to talk to the music editor and say, ‘Did I get close enough to that?’ or, ‘Does that work for you?’ And when I’m worrying, I worry with them, rather than with the director or producer.”

MUSIC EXECUTIVES AND SUPERVISORS The music department’s expectation of the composer is that he and the director are in direct communication; that they are on the same wavelength; that the musical tastes and desires of the director are implemented by the composer. Those are all goals. —Steve Bedell, former Vice President of Music, Paramount Pictures

The major motion picture studios all have executives in charge of music for their television and motion picture divisions. In some cases the same person presides over both divisions; in other cases, different people supervise the music for each medium. There are also independent music supervisors who assume the same tasks and responsibilities as the studio department heads but on a freelance basis. The Music Executive’s Responsibilities Generally speaking, the music executive is responsible for anything and everything having to do with music. This covers an enormous range, including some jobs that are strictly business oriented (licensing the rights to use music owned by an outside publishing company, cutting the deal for a major artist to sing on a soundtrack, negotiating the deal with the composer’s or lyricist’s agent) and some that are much more music oriented. Here is the list of a typical music executive’s responsibilities, some of which may not apply in specific instances: • Supervise and oversee all music activities (motion pictures and/or television) • Create a budget for all projects and sessions; coordinate with contractor • Conduct preliminary discussions with filmmakers regarding music • Research and find composers, lyricists, and songwriters • Recommend composers and lyricists to producers and directors • Negotiate their deals • Seek out recording artists and record producers • Negotiate soundtrack album deals • Coordinate studio interests with the outside record company • Coordinate artists’ schedules with film release dates • Coordinate the in-house music publishing interests • Attend some screenings of dailies • Attend advance screening of films prior to spotting

Preliminaries

23

• Attend spotting sessions with producer, director, composer • Attend scoring sessions • Function as liaison between composer and director • Function as liaison between music production and executives The specific tasks that a given music executive will assume usually reflect the experience he brings to the job. Backgrounds can differ widely. Some will have strong recordindustry backgrounds. Others have a solid music background and may have worked at one time as professional musicians. Some may have a background in business. Some of them do attend the scoring sessions regularly. “You referee a few fights,” says Gary LeMel, President, Worldwide Music, Warner Bros. Pictures. “It’s really tough. There was a film where the director, on every cue, jumped out of the booth and ran into the studio and yelled in front of all the players, and after a few of those scenes, the composer just walked out. And I was able to talk with both of them separately and get it back together. But it’s difficult because the director really feels ‘this is my domain—this is now the moment of truth.’” LeMel describes his activities as director of music at Warner Bros.: “I deal with anything that has to do with music for motion pictures—which includes meetings with the producer and director to decide what direction we’re going. I am responsible for the music in all of our films worldwide, because now we also are making films in foreign territories, local films. Sometimes it’s just a French movie for France. “In the case of a soundtrack album, we’re responsible for that, too. We have our own soundtrack label called Warner Sunset that is distributed by one of our three major labels, depending upon which one is involved in that particular soundtrack. I would say we release probably 75 percent of the soundtracks. If an artist is signed to another label and is a big artist and that label has a lot of money invested in them, we understand that. We try to get it when we can, and sometimes we get it because sometimes they think an infusion of new blood from another label may reactivate someone’s career, or the movie may. I bring ideas to it and they have ideas. Is there going to be a soundtrack album? If so, what kind of artists are we talking about, what kind of record deal are we going to structure? What labels have the artists that are closest to the feeling of the picture?” The Music Supervisor’s Responsibilities The term music supervisor used to be practically synonymous with that of music executive. Their responsibilities were similar, with the music supervisors more or less functioning in the same manner that the music executives would at the smaller studios and for independent production companies. This is still the case on these types of projects, but on the larger studios’ projects there will frequently be a music supervisor in addition to the studio music executive. This is because of the enormous popularity and success in recent years of song-oriented soundtracks. “The film world and the music world are very different worlds, but they overlap, and I usually describe my job as being ambassador between the two worlds,” independent music supervisor Maureen Crowe explains. “You have to understand the needs and the way each industry works, and liaison between the both of them. And on a film, I see my job as being the point person for anything that’s needed in music, because the reason they

On the track

24

bring a music supervisor on is usually because it’s so much work and it’s so intricate that it takes so much detail they need someone to sort everything out. Whether it’s recording a band and making sure the song is licensed and the band is correct—it can involve casting, it can involve producing, it can involve taking care of the legal side of it, taking care of the post needs, the preproduction needs, the soundtrack needs, the studio needs, and most importantly the director’s and the film’s needs.” The music supervisor’s involvement with the composer varies, but the composer’s fundamental relationship remains with the director. “I usually don’t try to insert myself in that relationship unless there’s a problem—I’m just basically a facilitator,” Crowe says. “I’m hired by the filmmakers and since the head of the music department is also involved in that decision to bring somebody in, you become an extension of the music department. You answer to the film but you’re there to communicate with the music department and make sure everything’s taken care of.”

Preliminaries

25

This page intentionally left blank.

On the track

26

2 THE SCRIPT, MEETINGS, AND SCREENINGS I don’t want to know what the script said that I now see is different. All I want to ask from a director is “Show me your final cut.” —Jerry Fielding

THE SCRIPT In most cases, the composer’s first connection with a project will be the script. If it is possible to screen the film soon after being contacted, the composer may wish to see the film without the advance input of the script. (Episodic television moves so fast that if you receive the script at all, you may already be scoring the episode.) Reading the script shortly before a first screening can sometimes soften the emotional impact of that screening, and in some cases may actually mislead you, according to composer Allyn Ferguson. “I don’t like to read the script because I have never seen a picture with a script that was shot as written. If I read a script, I start to get preconceptions about what the picture is, and then I go and see the picture and I think, ‘I have to get all that out of my mind—it’s not that at all!’” If the first screening is more than a few days off, it is probably a good idea to read the script anyway. If the film isn’t ready to be seen, the script will be the only common ground you and the filmmakers can share in discussing their project. If they are willing to wait until you have seen the film, you may wish to skip the script at this point. Usually, though, there will be sequences available fairly early on in the production process. If you have not yet received an offer to score the film, you must read the script. When a filmmaker decides to inquire about a composer’s availability to score his film, he will usually send a script to be sure the composer is really interested in working on the project. This is true whether the composer and producer have worked together before or not. The filmmakers and the composer are testing each other, wanting to be sure that the experience will be a good one for everybody. The filmmakers will be waiting to hear from the composer and will want to know his response to the script. If the composer knows either the producer or the director, he might call them directly to respond. If he has been contacted through his representative (agent, lawyer, manager), he will usually give his representative his reaction to the script, who then relays the response to the producer. In either case, the telephone is the medium for the message, not a letter. There are really only three possible (quotable) responses: (1) “I love it and want to work with you on your project”; (2) “I think it’s excellent, but I don’t think I can bring

Preliminaries

27

the right quality (style/approach) to your film”; or (3) “I’m unavailable, but let’s try again next time.” Unless you are very well established, the first response will be the best, but rest assured that all three are part of the professional ethic, and nobody really takes offense if you feel the film is not for you. The filmmakers want to know this. What to Look For Reading the script can provide you with a lot of basic information; there even may be specific music indications in it. These should be noted, with any questions that occur to you. Here is what you should look for: 1. Music may be built into the story line When this happens, the scene indicated in the script may already have been shot before the composer is on the project. The script for i am sam (2001) included a number of Beatles songs, so when John Powell started his work it was a given that as much as possible of these songs were going to be used. There were various versions of each song being considered (use of the actual master recordings was impractical), and the director, Jessie Nelson, would sometimes ask Powell to give his opinion, “to see if I could help work out why she might not like it or why it wasn’t working as well as it should do.” The movie 10 (1979) is a classic case of organic music integration, for which Blake Edwards scripted the use of Ravel’s Bolero into the story line, integrating it carefully into the seduction scene. The scene in part depends on that particular piece of music. As the scene progresses, the central male character (Dudley Moore) is hopelessly overwhelmed by a young blond he has seen on the beach (Bo Derek). They are listening to Prokofiev, she asks him if he has ever made love to Bolero, then walks to the record player and selects that piece. In time she asks him to start it over again; finally, he turns it off as he leaves. In both of these instances, the scripted music did not need to be recorded prior to shooting the scene, and the composer should take note that these scenes will need to be postscored if the music has not already been licensed by the producer before scoring begins (see Chapter 25). There are times when the script will tell you that music must be written before one or more scenes can be shot. This procedure is followed with animated films that feature onscreen songs, because the film is animated to the song and its lyric. Typically script indications of marching bands and dancing (in bars, weddings, and so on) are not recorded before shooting, but are replaced during the final scoring process. (For more on the technical aspects of this procedure, see Chapter 23.) Any song performed on camera for which there is no master recording already available will need to be recorded prior to shooting that sequence; films such as that thing you do! (1996), Almost Famous (2000), Rock Star (2001), Moulin Rouge! (2001), and Chicago (2002) are all good examples. Young Frankenstein (1974) required instrumental music before some scenes were shot. This was because the film’s script called for a gypsy theme to be played on camera, almost a character in the story. Dr. Frankenstein’s grandson (Gene Wilder) hears a violin

On the track

28

solo (00:23:46) and follows its sound behind a secret panel and through the castle’s interior rooms. At the end of the film we see the doctor’s trusty servant, Igor (Marty Feldman), on the castle turret, playing a French horn obbligato to the doctor’s empassioned violin (01:35:58), serenading the Frankenstein monster back to the castle; the violin solo begins at 01:35:20. John Morris wrote this theme before the film was shot so that director Mel Brooks could use the rough piano demo of the theme on location (see Figure 3.3). Providing some music or “guide tracks” prior to the start of shooting is not typical, but it can happen. The more musically oriented the project, the more likely that there will be scripted music that calls for preproduction planning and recording. When the composer subsequently screens the film, he should watch these prerecorded sequences carefully to see whether the scenes with the scripted music look convincing. If not, they will probably require more work in post-production. 2. The script may indicate visual or nonvisual source music Very often a script will call for source music. This music can be perceived as coming from an on-screen music source (for example, a radio or jukebox), be played by an onscreen band, or come from an unseen, possibly imaginary source—perhaps a CD or audiocassette player. A good example of this can be found in writer-director John Hughes’s film Sixteen Candles (1984) or a television set source such as the opening shoot-out in 48 Hours (1982) in which we accept the fact that cartoon music is coming from the television set even when that music continues, actually functioning as score for the subsequent sequence. Writers often indicate the style of music they imagine coming from the source. They might say “fifties rock and roll” or “the sounds of a Mariachi band drift across the patio.” These indications for source music may or may not reflect the tastes and desires of the director and producer, but it is not too soon for the composer to make note of them. They should go on his list of things to consider as they may give him possible clues as to an appropriate musical direction. 3. The script may suggest the music’s mood or style Writer-director Oliver Stone suggested salsa as an appropriate musical style for the ambience music in his script for Scarface (1983). “My music is described in the script, towards beginnings and ends of scenes, because generally if there’s going to be music, the description will be there. Certainly at the end of the scene.” In his script for Midnight Express (1978) he indicated lyrical, romantic music. “Definitely over very brutal and real images you put very romantic music. I think that heightens the brutality actually; by contrasting it with something very beautiful and fragile it becomes even more horrid. We wanted to evoke a sense of repugnance.” 4. The script may include specific songs or instrumental pieces How seriously should references to pop standards or symphonic classics be taken? It depends on the writer and the situation. If the writer is Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous), very seriously, because he is very musically aware and always thinking about the music

Preliminaries

29

for his films. In the case of Blake Edwards’ use of Ravel’s Bolero in 10, this piece of music was as intentional and specific as any of the dialogue he wrote for that movie.

THE FIRST MEETING BEFORE SCREENING THE FILM The first meeting will often be very general in character. If you haven’t seen the film yet, the director or producer will tell you the story and probably discuss their thoughts about musical style. This meeting is just a chance to get acquainted. Unless there is some immediate music need to take care of, filmmakers rarely expect serious, in-depth discussions at this early stage. If you are “auditioning” for the assignment, however, they will expect your suggestions regarding musical style, instrumentation, and dramatic approach. John Debney is well prepared for these meetings. “I really like to come in with a point of view when I go in to meet a director, rightly or wrongly, because I’ve learned that in my younger days when I didn’t come in with a point of view it was not as successful. And even when I’ve not gotten jobs, when I’ve come in with a certain point of view and I see the finished film later, interestingly enough, nine times out of ten it’s what I thought it should be. So I like to read the script or whatever I can do, or see the movie or parts of it beforehand, and then have the discussions with the director and give him my thoughts.” Going to the Set Many composers find it useful to visit the set during shooting. This early firsthand contact with the film tends to give them valuable insight into the film’s atmosphere and its characters. Edward Shearmur visited the set several times during the shooting of KPAX (2001), “just really for us to get a dialogue established about what the language of the score was going to be and what was going to be the right approach.” He had worked with the director before, and finds in those cases “it’s an initiation into the creative process. It really just helps the juices get flowing for me. Because it means you’re concentrating on the film and just doing some very long range planning in a way.” He says that when he’s meeting the director for the first time, “This is really the only time the director has to just say ‘hello.’ “Whether he has worked with the director before or not, he finds “it’s very, very important for me to see them in their working environment. It just helps to establish a rapport a little quicker because you get a sense of their energy, how they relate to the material, and once you’re into writing and they’re locked into the editing room, it’s very difficult to establish a meaningful rapport with somebody. I think it eliminates a lot of problems that may come up later, certainly, when that dialogue is established early.” Those who have been on the set generally agree with Shearmur that it is stimulating. “When I was working on Beloved [1998]…with Jonathan Demme,” says Rachel Portman, “I spent a week or ten days on the set there, and that definitely was a lot of help. I actually saw quite a few different scenes, and I felt the life of the film as it was…. It sort of goes somewhere into your psyche a little bit earlier, and that seems to be a good thing.”

On the track

30

Hans Zimmer reacted viscerally to the environment and circumstances when he visited the location where Ridley Scott was shooting his first big fight sequence for Gladiator (2000). It transported him back in time to the days of the Roman empire and instantly brought him into the film’s drama. Tan Dun’s intense reaction to the physical circumstances of the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon location was similar. “When they shot the two women fighting on the top of the roof I was there. That took place at three in the morning in the suburb of Beijing. It was extremely cold, minus ten degrees. This gave me a very percussive or hard feeling about the scene…. The night fight scenes as well as the bamboo forest fantasy scene were the two parts that inspired me the most when writing the score.”

THE FIRST SCREENING The first screening may take place the same day as your first meeting. Staff members may or may not sit with you during this screening, but in any event they will be very eager to hear your reactions to their film. Remember that the composer is often the first person outside the production staff to see the edited film; consequently the producer, director, and editor will be interested in how successful they have been in delivering their emotional message. If it’s a comedy, they may want to sit with you just to see if you laugh in the right places. It’s an opportunity for them to check the comedic timing and overall pacing of the film. Generally speaking, though, there is really no need for anyone to sit with the composer during this screening, and it can be a much more comfortable experience for the composer if he is alone. Ignore the Details What should you look for during this first screening? As an overriding principle, ignore the details and concentrate on the film’s effectiveness and emotional impact. Monitor your emotional reactions, and make mental notes about emotionally affecting scenes and moments. Hold on to these first impressions. After you have seen a film a dozen times and studied each scene you are scoring, you can no longer view the entire film with the freshness required to react instinctively. A funny line just isn’t as funny the twentieth time you hear it. By then you may find yourself reacting with a detached attitude as you watch the heroine die in the tenth reel. It is crucial for the composer to notice how he feels the first and second time he sees the film. At a first screening, watch the film as a member of the audience, not as the composer for the project. Monitor your reactions to remember them, but with as much objectivity as possible so you don’t lose emotional contact with the film. Look for mood, feeling, texture, and the overall nature of the film and its emotional impact. Things to avoid include spotting the film, making too many mental notes regarding technical matters, and intellectualizing. These distractions will interfere with your initial emotional response to the film.

Preliminaries

31

FIRST CUT, FINE CUT, AND ASSEMBLY It is important to know how far along the film editing is. What shape is the film in? Editing can cause a major shift in a film’s overall impact; the natural tightening up of the footage as editing continues adds both power and focus to the final film. It takes experience to sense just exactly what effect this will have on your emotional reaction to the film, but the change may be significant. The film may be described as an assembly (which can be quite a bit longer or shorter than its ultimate length); a first cut (usually within five to fifteen minutes of its final length); an almost fine cut (usually within a few minutes of its final length, but with some polishing still to be done); a fine cut, or locked (no intention of further editing). By the year 2002, fine cuts were a thing of the past, especially on features. Films continue to be edited and polished, even through the final dubbing sessions. Digital editing has made this possible and directors take full advantage of this technology to assemble different versions of scenes (see Chapters 12 and 16 for more about the impact of this on the composer and orchestrator). Assembly Is it a first assembly? In that case, the film may be quite overlong, with extra footage still in many sequences. Pacing may be much slower than it will ultimately be in action sequences like chases and shootouts, traveling sequences of any kind, and key dramatic sports events. Suspense sequences may also be overlong, as will montages, which often are in very rough condition. The first assembly of the feature film Leadbelly (1975, Karlin) was over three-and-ahalf hours long; the film at that point included one overlong but significant chase and a lot of songs that were eventually shortened. The final release print was approximately two hours. The seven-hour television miniseries Dream West (1985, Karlin) was twoand-a-half hours longer than the fine cut when the videocassettes were first delivered for scoring. One trek through snow-swept mountains occupied almost an entire ten-minute reel of film. During that sequence there was no dialogue at all—just the “slosh, slosh, slosh” of a dozen men slowly walking up a mountain, pushing their way through kneehigh snow during a blizzard. Easily an hour and a half of additional music would have been needed just to score this extra footage. Early exposure to a film may lead you to a false impression of the balance between narrative and dramatic elements, which in turn can throw off your overall emotional reaction to the film itself. First Cut and Fine Cut It can be a shock to watch a work print if you are not used to seeing a film in that condition. Although less and less common, there might be no music in it. Without experience in viewing films this way, the composer may misjudge dramatic elements of a film (especially genre films) because music is a just as important an element in the viewing experience for composers as for the general audience. It can be an even more

On the track

32

startling experience if there is music already. (This music is called temp music or temp tracks; see Chapter 3.) There may be lines that can’t be understood; the loud sound of an airplane in the master shot of a scene but not in the close-ups; unconvincing gun shots; nonexistent door slams and only lightning without thunder. All of this will be smoothed out by the end of postproduction, but not before the score is composed unless temp sound effects are mixed in with temp music on the composer’s work video. If the film happens to rely on dialogue not yet laid in or sound effects to be added in dubbing, you may miss a great deal. Some first cuts, on the other hand, will seem comparatively complete. Fine cuts require no further editing. The composer and the sound-effects people used to work from the fine cut whenever possible (although there were times when a tight schedule necessitated working from a film while it was still being edited). Now, however, you should expect the editing to continue right through the composing process. You may find yourself recording a cue that no longer fits the scene perfectly due to editorial changes. Near the end of the scoring process, composers frequently find themselves recording to an earlier version of a cue, as it is simply too impractical to continually change the score, the orchestration, and the copying to accommodate all the lastminute changes. Most of the time the music editor will make the necessary adjustments in the recorded cue to adjust for these editorial changes. Less frequently scenes will have to be rescored. Missing visual effects will be indicated with simple animation, storyboards, or some such temporary substitute for the final version.

THE FIRST DISCUSSION AFTER SCREENING THE FILM Composers are not expected to screen a film for the first time and then immediately have a detailed discussion of concept, musical solutions, and recommendations. The filmmakers’ first concerns will be: Did you like the film? Did it work? What were your impressions? They may also have specific dramatic concerns, and the composer, coming in fresh, has a chance to tell them something about an audience’s possible response to their film. If they are worried about a particular story point, they’ll want to know if you understood it. If they think a particular performance is weak, they may share that concern with you, or they may hope you’ll mention your feelings about it without their asking. Did it feel too long? Was there enough tension or suspense? They may not ask you these questions, even though these thoughts are on their minds. In fact, they may give you their answers to these unspoken questions; if so, you can take that as an invitation. They are probably hoping you will give them feedback on whatever subject they raise. If they say, “We wanted Tom Cruise for the lead, but we couldn’t get him,” tell them how much you enjoyed the quality their actor brings to the role—if you did. If you didn’t think it worked at all, we can’t suggest what to say; sometimes silence may be appropriate. But if they ask you if you understood a story point and you didn’t, tell them, and tell them why if you can. Overall, filmmakers appreciate sincerity and candor—if it doesn’t hurt too much. But no matter how distinguished the composer, or how much respect the filmmakers may have for his abilities as a composer, the composer is rarely considered one of the

Preliminaries

33

filmmakers, unless he has actually written or developed the project himself. Footloose (1984) and Yentl (1983) were early exceptions, in which the lyricists (more than the composers) were deeply involved with the making of the film, due to the total integration of the songs and the script (see Chapter 24). If you are able to establish a true one-to-one relationship with the director, that is ideal. If not, you would be wise to limit yourself to comments on the musical aspects of the film. Hindering your reaction to the film in its purest form will be the fact that you almost never will see the film without music in it. Temp tracks are placed in the film for a variety of reasons that will be discussed in Chapter 3. If you are able to see it without the temp track once before seeing the film with this music, it will be very much to your advantage, and ultimately to the advantage of the filmmakers also.

COMPOSING BEFORE THE FILM IS FINISHED In cases where there is music to prepare for shooting to playback, it is mandatory to start composing before the film is finished. Songs are often created early as well. Otherwise, starting to compose the score before the film is finished may be a mistake. This is an area of disagreement between composers, and may depend largely on the project, the people involved, and other unique circumstances. The late Jerry Fielding explained the potential problems: “Some composers like to be with a film from the beginning, but not me. I don’t like to go on location, read scripts, or hang around while they’re making movies. I don’t want to know what they shot and what they left on the floor. I don’t want to know

On the track

34

Hans Zimmer. Photo: Alia Mohsenin. what the intent was; I don’t want to know what the script said that I now see is different. If I feel the film isn’t working, I’m going to tell the director where I feel that is, and where I think it needs music to help it achieve its proper end. But I don’t ever want to see what they took out, what they mixed around, because that’s what’s confusing the director by this time.” However, there are positive aspects to beginning to compose prior to the completion of the film. For one thing, it can begin the problem-solving process and get some of the more timeconsuming work out of the way. Edward Shearmur recalls, “The earliest things on K-PAX [2001] that I looked at were some very early cut sequences of the walk through the house, the flashback of the murder, and the aftermath where he plunges himself into the river. Because that’s the emotional core of the film, if you like. I think our earliest discussions were about how to approach that sequence.” He agrees that this was perhaps the most difficult sequence in the film to score, and considering it early on helped. “The idea of the musical shape of that sequence came very, very early and most of the work I did on that sequence was really production and sonic work rather than compositional. Finding what worked with Melissa, the vocalist, and just getting the synthetic stuff right took up most of the time on that.” Shearmur had made some demos after reading the script (something he rarely does) because he wanted to get the dialogue going with the director in order to establish what the language of the score was going to be. “As is usually the case with these things, that stuff never made it into the movie but it initiated a discussion about what was going to be the right approach. It’s really trying to discover the complexity of the musical language, you know, how dense or opaque the style is going to be. What I ended up with was very far from what I started with. I started with a fairly dense and certainly more chromatic idiom than the one we finished up with. There was a naiveté to Kevin Spacey’s performance that really demanded a very open musical language. The more sophisticated pieces that I had come up with initially didn’t really feel appropriate.” Hans Zimmer gave Terrence Malick a complete score before he started shooting The Thin Red Line (1998). “Nothing is left of it and at the same time the intent is all the way through the score. I can relate every cue that’s in the finished movie to one of those early experiments.” He did this as the ultimate demonstration of a musical point of view, “because there was no point talking about it. Terry needs music to shape his images. He wouldn’t look at dailies without music. He partly forced me into it and partly we spent a year before he went out shooting. We just spent time together. We wouldn’t talk about music per se, we’d talk about paintings. We’d talk about the way the light comes through the clouds in certain baroque paintings. So by the time he went off it seemed like a good idea to send him off with a soundtrack to our conversations.” If the filmmakers and the composer can collaborate in this way, it may be the best of all possible worlds. Still, this kind of work method is not yet ordinary procedure, and achieves the best results under unique circumstances. Generally speaking, if you are isolated from the director and the ongoing filmmaking, it may be wise not to compose to the script before seeing footage, or, at best, consider your music as work-in-progress

Preliminaries

35

sketches that may or may not be useful in developing your concept and a line of communication with the director.

On the track

36

This page intentionally left blank.

Preliminaries

37

3 ROLE MODELS AND TEMP TRACKS If I am trying to tell a composer specifically what the music has to say through me, then I might as well not have a composer, because I am cutting off his legs at the knees and not stimulating his creative impulses. On the other hand, I want his creative impulses to be in sync with mine. —James Goldstone, Director

Even if they say, “I want Stravinsky’s Firebird”—what part? Play me the part you want. —Bruce Broughton

WHEN YOU WANT TO be absolutely specific in describing a musical idea, words are rarely completely reliable. Many times, though, a verbal description of general musical intention can be reasonably clear even to a nonmusician. “Marchlike” means something to everybody. Describing a theme as “a simple, folklike theme, something like ‘Home on the Range,’” or “an Irish folk theme like the theme from James Horner’s score for Titanic,” would express a composer’s concept of the style of music for a film score. More specific comments would further clarify his ideas in terms a nonmusician could grasp: “I’ll use a harmonica and guitar, with soft string chords,” for example. In the case of the Titanic score, there are several themes, so you might still need to identify the specific one you are referencing by humming it. When a director says, “I’d like the theme to sound something like this…” and he plays a CD track for you, he is using a role model to demonstrate his wishes. At best, the use of role models can be an effective way for directors, producers, and composers to communicate accurately with each other. If the filmmakers ask for “a score like American Beauty,” ten minutes with the original soundtrack album will remove any uncertainty the composer may have about the filmmakers’ intentions. And if the composer suggests scoring a particular cue in the style of Vivaldi, he might be wise to explain his suggestion by playing a recording that sounds stylistically and emotionally close to what he has in mind, especially if he believes the filmmakers may be unclear about the style. Role models come from the following sources: 1. A specific film score or cue 2. A specific style of film score 3. A specific classical piece or other musical style 4. A specific song

On the track

38

SPECIFIC FILM SCORES OR CUES AS ROLE MODELS Major landmarks in film scoring, current or historical, are often used as role models. Scores with enormous impact on the commercial market and those from extraordinarily successful films are often used as references, as are those that just seem to work extraordinarily well. The following examples of role models from well-known films illustrate both the usefulness and the prevalence of role models in the language of film communication. • Lawrence of Arabia (1962, Maurice Jarre). Richard Michaels, director of the miniseries Sadat (1983), recalls, “I told Charles Bernstein I wanted a Lawrence of Arabia type of big full orchestral sounds—as many instruments as we could possibly afford, and that kind of triumph. Basically what we were looking for was a big, big picture” (see Figure 16.3). • North by Northwest (1959, Bernard Herrmann). Arthur B. Rubinstein illustrates the necessity of being specific when using role models as points of reference: “I did a television movie starring Audrey Hepburn. And it was a combination of Charade [1963], Two for the Road [1966], and any number of her films. And the producer said, “The music for this should be, I don’t know who it is—it’s Cary Grant music.’ I said, ‘You mean North by Northwest?’ He said, ‘Yes, right.’ So I wrote the score, which is very much in that genre. And on the scoring stage, one of the producers said, ‘I like that, but that heavy section—you know, it’s a comedy.’ I said, ‘No, it’s not a comedy.’ And she said, ‘Didn’t you see Charade?’ And I said, ‘Charade is not a comedy.’ As it turned out, when they dubbed it, everybody called and said, ‘You were absolutely right.’ “In this case, thanks to the role model referenced, the filmmakers wanted what they asked for, even though when they first heard it they were surprised and uncertain. • Speed (1994, Mark Mancina). This film was a big action genre hit and Mancina’s score made an impression with its driving percussion supporting big orchestral statements. It became a role model for other scores, and he himself had requests to use this score as a role model. “I had a hit with Speed, and if I wanted to work, ‘Just do that score again.’ And I don’t like that. And once I got to the point where I could financially say, ‘Okay, I don’t need to do that now, I can move to something else,’ which was about a year and a half after the success of that film, I took on other projects.” • The Great Escape (1963, Elmer Bernstein). John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams were faced with a real challenge when they began working on their score for the animated film Chicken Run (2000). “Basically the film is a pastiche on The Great Escape,” says Gregson-Williams. “So, guess what music they had on the opening title sequence. Which is such a brilliant piece of music. And it conjured up exactly the right feel.” They wrote for something like six weeks looking for a solution that would work for them and the filmmakers. “Because, no, we’re not going to rip this off, because it would be a rip off. Yet, it can’t be something completely different, it has to be in this genre. But the Elmer Bernstein piece of music was the genre.” At the end of the six weeks, they had produced one tune, “which still wasn’t right,”

Preliminaries

39

Powell adds. The whole opening of the film is a sequence about eight minutes long, with music throughout. Powell and Gregson-Williams scored the sequence four or five different ways before arriving at a solution. Throughout the film, they worked not only with the Great Escape role model, but also with the whole tradition of British film scoring exemplified by such films as the WWII prison camp classic The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, Malcolm Arnold) and comedy/adventure films such as Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965, Ron Goodwin). The two composers’ ultimate solution incorporated elements suggested by The Great Escape (including a simple marchlike tune, tuba playing the bass, woodwinds on the theme), but the melody itself is distinctly different. Gregson-Williams explains how they came to it. “I had written this rather bittersweet cue for the death of one of the chickens, and John had gone off and emerged from a darkened room some days later using that cue, which is nothing like the Elmer Bernstein tune, but giving it that kind of treatment, tuba on the bottom, pizzicato strings on the bottom. It’s a very up, happy thing.” See Figures 3.1 and 3.2 for the two themes. • Rush Hour (1998, Lalo Schifrin). Brett Ratner admired Schifrin’s music so much for the Bruce Lee film Enter the Dragon (1973) that he had the Main Title music on his answering machine, which the composer had to listen to every time he phoned the director. His directive to Schifrin: “If Enter the Dragon had the beat of the seventies, it should be the Enter the Dragon of the new millennium.” So Schifrin’s own score, written almost thirty years prior to this new assignment, became his role model. At one time Ratner was considering using the original Enter the Dragon music in his film, but ultimately the composer prevailed with a new score for Rush Hour that retained the flavor of the seventies score but updated it, using prerecorded electronics along with a large orchestra (see Figures 21.12 and 21.13 for excerpts from this score).

SPECIFIC FILM-SCORING STYLES USED AS ROLE MODELS It’s not unusual for filmmakers to talk in terms of the style of a particular composer or score, so that the style becomes the role model. It may be based on only one particular theme from an earlier film, but it is the adaptation of that style that the director wants. The role model might be described as “a Jerry Goldsmith score” or “a Thomas Newman score.” When directors reference a specific score, “a Thomas Newman score like Pay It Forward,” this brings a lot of clarity to the discussion. In order for role model communication to work effectively, everyone involved in the dialogue needs to know the composers and the scores being referenced. If not, immediate research is required to keep the dialogue moving forward without misunderstandings. FIGURE 3.1 The Great Escape (1963)

On the track

40

© 1963 (Renewed 1991) EMI U Catalog Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 3.2 Chicken Run (2000)

Preliminaries

41

© 2000 SKG Songs (ASCAP) and Songs of SKG (BMI). Worldwide Rights for SKG Songs Administered by Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc. Worldwide Rights for Songs of SKG Administered by Cherry River Music Co. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. When John Debney screened Cats & Dogs (2001) the music on the temp track selected for the Main Title and other cues was loaded with role model references, including “Mission Impossible” (Lalo Schifrin, 1966–73), “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (Jerry Goldsmith, 1964–68), “Peter Gunn” (Henry Mancini, 1958–61), and the John Barry style for the James Bond movies. He updated all these styles, primarily by making the rhythm section sound much more current. “The drums and the rhythms are pretty much what would be considered in the Chemical Brothers/techno world ‘trans’ type style. In other

On the track

42

words, updating the rhythm but keeping the integrity of the retro sound, an homage to that whole genre. What I did was a broad collage of styles that all blended into this crazy movie called Cats & Dogs. It was three or four, maybe even five different stylistic approaches. When the movie towards the end gets a little more serious, obviously the music gets more serious and more orchestral—when we’re not sure about the outcome, whether our hero’s going to make it, etc.”

SPECIFIC CLASSICAL PIECES OR STYLES USED AS ROLE MODELS When I say Berlioz, I didn’t do Berlioz; I did what Berlioz might have done fifty years later, if he were scoring that film. —Allyn Ferguson

Very often classical music defines the style of the score for the composer or filmmakers. But sometimes the use of a role model can communicate without being used as a specific example, or for the composer or the filmmaker, it can establish a sound and an emotional content. It can become a musical illustration of the nature of the music, not the specific notes. Symphonic Music When director Ron Shelton met with Elliot Goldenthal to discuss Cobb, the 1994 biopic about baseball great Ty Cobb, Goldenthal suggested that the Adagio from Mahler’s 3rd Symphony was an appropriate role model for the ending of the film. “Cobb was an opera fan. And he would actually attend the opera and listen to this music. And that collides with our notion of who he was. So, I think that was the actual word for Cobb. When he was going back to the Hall of Fame the music was actually very interior and even though it didn’t sound like it, it had the effect of the more melancholy scores of Mahler. And Ron Shelton and I were after that kind of aesthetic. As opposed to a typical Americana way of scoring it.” Shelton had found another symphonic role model for the film, which he used as temp music for the scenes when Cobb (Tommy Lee Jones) and the sports writer (Robert Wuhl) are driving through a blizzard to get to Reno. He could have selected some sort of period music—perhaps jazz or something pop—but the director’s use of the last movement of Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony told Goldenthal that he wanted a classical symphonic sound for that part of the film, and would have used the Mendelssohn in the film: “I said, ‘Nah, nah, nah, that doesn’t go with everything, it’s a good idea but let me try something,’ and Ron said, ‘Well, okay, so if you strike out, Mendelssohn is in the bull pen.’ Ron chose a bit of European music that was very classy. It was my take on what I think he was trying to achieve. In tempo only.” (The first use of this music begins 42 minutes from the fade in of the WB logo.)

Preliminaries

43

Elliot Goldenthal. Middle European Lullaby John Morris explains his role model for Young Frankenstein (1974): “Mel Brooks, in his films, always tries to go for the center of the emotion. Young Frankenstein could conceivably have been just another horror movie—it could have been just horror music. However, his instruction to me was to write the most beautiful Middle European lullaby that I could, which would serve as a violin rhapsody, because we needed violin playing during the picture. So that’s exactly what I wrote” (see Figure 3.3). Vivaldi Mandolin Concerto Georges Delerue describes the director’s musical role model for A Little Romance (1979): “The only thing that was really said was that George [Roy Hill] proposed the sound of the mandolin and guitar to reflect the intimacy of the two kids. He also put in a temp track of Vivaldi, which was fitting very well, and he wanted to keep it for one particular sequence. So I continued that, in order to not have a break in the style of the music. And because it was necessary to have a very clear score, very dynamic and tonal.” Using Role Models to Communicate There are those times when the filmmaker’s suggestions, as expressed by a role model, do not seem appropriate; the concept just doesn’t work for the composer. This is when

On the track

44

the composer’s powers of persuasion become most important. In order to be FIGURE 3.3 Young Frankenstein (1974)

© 1974 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. convincing, you’ve got to study the project and determine its emotional values as thoroughly as possible, and from every angle. Only then will you be able to sincerely recommend another approach, or properly explain to the filmmaker why you believe his concept doesn’t work. In any case, your own new music will be your best presentation for going in a different direction; any less will probably not make for a convincing argument. Allyn Ferguson faced this challenge on the television movie Camille (1984). Somebody told producer Norman Rosemount that Camille was also the story of La Traviata. “So he had said for months, ‘I’d like La Traviata to be paraphrased as the score,’” says Ferguson. “I had gone through La Traviata to find anything that was available. The only thing that could possibly have been used was a part of the overture to the first and third act. There’s one little section you could use as score. And I sat Norman down and said, ‘Okay, here is this aria and here’s that one. This is just vocal music, and can’t be done instrumentally. Besides that, even Verdi didn’t like it very much—he thought it was trite himself in those days. So if it was banal then, what is it going to be now?’ “Then I played him what I thought it should be, and he said, ‘Well, you’re breaking my heart. I really think it ought to be La Traviata.’ And I said, ‘Norman, I just won’t do that. If you want that, get somebody else to do it. I think it’s wrong as hell.’” This is an excellent example of artistic integrity in action. In this case, Ferguson had worked on many of Rosemount’s projects, and had developed a very high credibility quotient. And so he was able to compose the score his way, as he felt worked best. But first he did his research, without summarily dismissing Rosemount’s idea out of hand. Had he continued down the producer’s path, he might well have turned in a less effective score, which would have ultimately reflected on his own professional abilities, not Rosemount’s.

THE COMPOSER’S USE OF ROLE MODELS So I will call upon Prokofiev, or I’ll call upon Bartok, or will call upon Mahler. —Arthur B. Rubinstein

Preliminaries

45

I would like to thank Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Strauss, RimskyKorsakov… —Dimitri Tiomkin, at the 1955 Academy Awards

Classical Composers Some examples of classical composers used by composers as role models for scores or cues are: • John Adams (Edward Shearmur, for K-PAX, 2000; Don Davis, for The Matrix, 1999) • Bach (Johnny Mandel, for Deathtrap, 1982) • Berlioz (Allyn Ferguson, for the television film Les Miserables, 1978) • Elgar, Mendelssohn (Elmer Bernstein, for Trading Places, 1983) • Ravel (Peter Nashel, for The Deep End (2000) • Steve Reich (Don Davis, for The Matrix, 1999) • Satie (Johnny Mandel, for Being There, 1979) • Sibelius (Craig Safan, for The Last Starfighter, 1984) • Tchaikovsky (John Morris, for Young Frankenstein, 1974) • Vaughan Williams (James Newton Howard, for The Man in the Moon, 1991) • Vivaldi (Marvin Hamlisch, for one cue in Sophie’s Choice, 1982; Georges Delerue, for A Little Romance, 1979) Folk Music and Contemporary Influences Here are some examples of folk music and various contemporary sources used by composers as role models for scores or cues: • Americana (James Newton Howard, for The Man in the Moon, 1991; Randy Newman, Ragtime, 1981; Christopher Young, Bandits, 2000 and Country Bears, 2002) • Bee Gees groove (Marvin Hamlisch, for the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977: the cue at beginning of film, on the ski slopes) • Celtic music (James Horner, for Braveheart, 1995; Mark Mancina, for Moll Flanders, 1996) • Jazz and blues (Christopher Young, for The Hurricane, 1999; Chris Boardman, for Payback, 1999) • Pop, rock, hip-hop, techno (Edward Shearmur, various relating to songs used in the film, for Charlie’s Angels, 2000; Harry Gregson-Williams, techno for The Replacement Killers, 1998) • Red Army Chorus (Johnny Mandel, for The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, 1966) • “A Summer Place” arranged by Percy Faith, late sixties (Patrick Williams, for Violets Are Blue, 1986) When Anne Dudley saw Fearless (1993), she was very affected by an important sequence in the film scored with an excerpt from Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3.

On the track

46

The story of a man (Jeff Bridges) who is the sole survivor of a plane crash, when the crash is finally shown on screen, “the director used that music and I’ve never forgotten it,” she says, “because with all this turbulence going on, this music, which is very serene, slow moving, just seems to underline the tragedy of the event rather than the pictorial aspect of it. The sound effects always do the reality as good as you can get, so if the music can do something else, I think that’s a good thing.” The approach to putting music up against this moment in the film stayed with her when she was writing her own music for American History X (1998). In this case the use of a particular piece of music had a profound effect on the composer, perhaps more so than the actual musical role model itself. Songs The influence of high-profile recording artists and their songs on today’s film scoring is enormous. Many times these songs or artists are specifically referenced or used as role models. There are always favorites, year by year, decade by decade. In the eighties it was The Rolling Stones for rock and roll; in 2002 the Chemical Brothers were used as examples of techno and artists like Nelly were used for rap. These role models change regularly with the times and the immediacy and popularity of the artists. The role modeling done with this music is deliberate and powerful, reflecting in some cases the taste of the filmmakers, or in other cases their desire to have a contemporary soundtrack (both for the film and for the soundtrack album).

EVOKING A ROLE MODEL INADVERTENTLY In Road to Perdition (2002), when the location shifts to the open roads and Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) and his son Michael are driving from bank robbery to bank robbery, Thomas Newman imagined the possibility of a change of tone and pace. He suggested folk fiddle to director Sam Mendes. “He didn’t hate that idea at all, but the issue with it was, could you take it far enough? For thirty seconds but it can’t sustain itself for two and a half or three minutes. And he had always liked the idea of opening up in that scene, and the feeling that the audience really needed refreshment. So he encouraged me to have a more muscular orchestral palette for that cue. You could argue that here they are in a new environment doing a new thing and that would make a rural setting in which the characters played. These are conversations obviously that we have with directors.” But there was another issue as well. “Taste is so unarguable,” Newman explains. “Someone says, ‘Well, gee, that kind of reminds me of the Beverly Hillbillies.’ And you think, ‘Ahh, that’s not fair.’ At the same time, once said, you can’t unring the bell.” Of course, in such a case it is undeniable that the music is stimulating such reactions and comparisons. “Dramatic music, music in movies, is so referenced that you have to obey those unfortunate references that people have. ‘Oh, gee, I feel like I’m crossing the Rio Grande or something.’ Oh, Lord, here we go. So much for this piece.” Whatever may develop, Elliot Goldenthal’s advice is invaluable: “Stay personal as an

Preliminaries

47

artist. Don’t think of, ‘Oh, yeah, I saw To Kill a Mockingbird [1962] so this is what this has to be, or I saw this, or I saw that. So then, that was effective so I should write this way.’ Stay personal.”

ROLE MODELS AND PLAGIARISM When the role model is a piece of music in the public domain, the composer has the choice of using the music, quoting from it, doing something similar, or something different. When the role model is a copyrighted piece, the situation is more difficult, and the composer may find that anything he composes that is similar to the role model may be considered plagiarism. Then lawyers, musicologists, and other experts attempt to decide whether an infringement has in fact occurred. Plagiarism is an ill-defined issue. Cases are not tried in specialized courts as are patent suits (although not very many plagiarism cases actually come to trial because it is expensive and the outcome so unpredictable that each party is afraid a costly decision could go against them). But some do come to trial. Many of the experts’ opinions seem completely farfetched. Ira Newborn tells a story about writing a piece of generic I VI II V music for a dance party: “This guy [a hired musicologist] had me so scared that I wrote it with no melody. I just wrote the chords and a string line, and the guy told me it was ‘Rio Rita’!” (a 1929 popular song). The best advice is to try to capture the tone and spirit of a role model without plagiarizing a copyrighted property. If a plagiarism case is lost (through a court suit or through a threat of a suit and a negotiated settlement), the composer’s credits and performance royalties go to the plaintiff. This is a field in which it is nearly impossible to give advice. Legal decisions are unpredictable, and the guidelines are in the hands of lawyers and music departments. You have to follow their advice on particular projects as the questions arise. Legal precedents aren’t very helpful. In short, even under intense pressure to emulate a copyrighted work, be as original as possible.

TEMP TRACKS There is this disease, a demo love. A director will get so used to temp music that it shackles the composer’s creativity. —Michael Tronick, Music Editor/Film Editor

They say, ‘We really don’t need you to come this close to the temp. We’d love it, but please, don’t feel like you have to copy it.’ —Christophe Beck

They temp it with something and then the poor composer walks onto the scene and they say, ‘We want it just like that.’ and you end up

On the track

48

with someone being castrated before they’ve even started the job. —Jeff Charbonneau, Music Editor

A temp score is like a hammer; in the hands of a builder it’s a tremendous tool, in the hands of a homicidal maniac it’s a weapon of mass destruction. —Alan Silvestri

If the musical examples being used as role models are actually cut and dubbed into the film prior to scoring, the cues become temp tracks and the score as a whole becomes the temp score (or temp track). No phrase in the language of film has as much potential for causing anguish and anxiety for the composer as “temp tracks.” On the other hand, there is great potential benefit as well, and most composers are well-adapted to working with them. Temp is short for temporary, which is something that temp tracks frequently aren’t. Even if they are totally and successfully replaced by an original score, there may be a musical residue left behind. Bruce Broughton finds that the similarity between the temp track and the final score can be too close for comfort. “There are, I think, a lot of obvious cases in films where you see what the temp track was. But there’s no disclaimer you can put on the picture saying, ‘This is what they wanted. Period.’ And yet I know that happens to everybody.” In Broughton’s case, Carl Orff’s s Carmina burana (first performed in 1937) had been used for a big dramatic scene near the end of Young Sherlock Holmes (1985). There was no way out of this dilemma, but in spite of the score’s clear relationship to Orff in that scene, Broughton’s score is very original throughout. Composers viewing a film for the first time may hear a wide variety of musical sources from soundtracks: Midnight Express (1978, Giorgio Moroder) and Bernard Herrmann cues in Charlie’s Angels; American Beauty (1999) and Pay It Forward (2000, both Thomas Newman) in Heartbreakers (2001); music from the James Bond film Thunderball (1965, John Barry) and The Pink Panther (1964, Henry Mancini) in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999); Sophie’s Choice (1982), Marvin Hamlisch) in Meet Joe Black (1998); The Fugitive (1993) and Waterworld (1995, both James Newton Howard), and cues by Christopher Young and James Horner, in The X-Files (1998). Those who work in the field, and dedicated film music fans as well, all know pretty much what the temp tracks and role models sources were when they hear a new score. Daniel Allan Carlin, a music editor and chairman/CEO of Segue Music with his partner, Jeff Carson (president), says, “We have a game around here where on Monday, we’ll say, ‘Well, who saw such and such a movie? Oh, yeah, what do you think it’s tracked with?’ And it’s really unfortunate. It’s not really safe these days for composers who don’t have enough stature or money in the bank to ignore the temp track.”

Preliminaries

49

Daniel Allan Carlin. Photo: Lester Cohen. Carlin worries about this trend. “I just think that temp tracks have really harmed the evolution of film scoring. Because the composer now has to make a choice when he or she comes in and listens to the temp. ‘Do I, as the composer, now want to do something clever and new, or do I want to play safe and sort of mimic what the director has been living with for the last six weeks [or more] and is going to live with for another six weeks?’ I still maintain that the difficulty is that the directors become so accustomed to the temp track that when you bring in the new material it’s the same as somebody changing the voice of one of their actors. And they can’t get past the adjustment to appreciate the originality of the music that you’re bringing in. And too many scores are getting thrown out and I think that the safe thing for composers to do is to go ahead then and sort of mimic the temp track.” Some film composers are more sanguine than others about temp tracks, and a few actually seem to be at peace with them, among them Jerry Goldsmith. “I quite appreciate them. In many cases it tells me what not to do or it gives me a point of reference with the director so I can ask if that’s what they really mean or are they trying to say something else. Music is so abstract that to verbalize about music is really impossible—so it’s always a comparative process. I appreciate that, and I’ll ask a director to send me a cut of the film with the temp score.”

MUSIC EDITORS AND TEMP TRACKS—HOW IT’S DONE

On the track

50

Digital technology has dramatically changed the way music editors do their work. Gone are the days of 1,000-foot reels of 35mm mag picture and dialogue and the backbreaking work of constantly threading up those heavy reels on specially constructed rewind machines and manually winding down to the next cue. No more grease pencils for marking dissolves, no more razor blades and splicing tape, no more sandpaper to gently scrape the edges of the magnetic sound film to smooth out the sound of a crossfade from one piece of music to another. “Because of Pro Tools,” says Carlin, “you don’t have to wait for somebody to make a transfer. If you were tracking in the old days you would do some picking off your discs or off your cassettes or DATs and then you’d send it over to the transfer department and they would make the mag for you and send it back over, and you’d break it down and try it, so this was a very prolonged process. And now, if you pick something that you like you’re picking from CD and you can immediately load it at high speed into your Pro Tools and now you have your print. And once it’s in the Pro Tools it’s immediate duplication, so you can have as many of those as you want so you can keep using the same cue on all six different reels, whatever you need. That’s made it easier and quicker.” Just as word processing brought enormous flexibility to the writing process, so has the new technology encouraged virtually unlimited experimentation and rapid-fire turnaround in the music editing room. Cues that formerly would have been incompatible and impossible to smoothly blend together may now work perfectly, thanks to pitch shifting and time stretching. This has increased the possibilities tremendously, not only in the making of convincing temp tracks but significantly, in the contribution music editors can make during the final mix on the dubbing stage. The actual construction of the temp track can be a long, drawn-out process, starting with whatever the film editor may use early on. Johnny Caruso, who has done many temp tracks for motion pictures, is often on a film for five months. “It’s usually a crunch for the first temp, and that’s usually four to five weeks, and then there’s a week of calmness and then another two weeks of madness and the second temp, so that’s about eight weeks. And, depending on how it’s going, and rarely these days does it go smoothly, I’ve had the experience of being laid off for a few weeks and then coming back on, and then doing the third temp, and by that point staying on for the final. Mainly conforming stems but there are always certain areas they want to deal with.” Caruso begins with conversations with the director, finding out what he has in mind. “When I go in there, I ask a lot of questions before I do anything. And I try and spend as much time with the director as I possibly can.” After that there can be an enormous amount of research, listening to various CDs and then playing music for him. “He’ll say, ‘That might work for this scene, and that might work for that scene.’ And pretty soon you’ve developed a palette and I try to stay thematic whenever I can. If something is working for one scene with the bad guys, then I’ll go back to that score and see if there’s something else using the same theme that’ll work in other places.” At that point Caruso might actually sync music to particular sequences, and then receive a response: “‘Well, that’s not the way I want it to go with it. That’s a good idea but I want to go someplace else.’ Or, ‘You know, I really like that section of it. I can see where you could choose to work with it. See if you can find a way to cut it to make it work.’”

Preliminaries

51

Curt Sobel, like Caruso a composer himself, finds he can approach some temp tracks very creatively. “What I’ll often do is combine elements from different films, right on top of each other in the same cue. And they don’t conflict. It seems like they would but they don’t. And they’re also not always orchestra and orchestra. Like I’ll have a percussion track of a cue from some film and I’ll lay it on top of the orchestra track of another one, to make it work. So I use up the 16 tracks, and I have a whole jigsaw puzzle of sounds for my temps.” Sobel has been in situations where he was able to solve a lot of the difficult issues the director had as to how to play certain moments in a film, or even the overall approach music should take in their film. In i am sam (2000), Richard Chew had cut in pieces by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra in three different places. “They were simple, childlike cues,” says Sobel, “and that quality was very appropriate for the film. And the director liked it a lot. But still, it lacked emotion. And it lacked drama. It was almost like putting classical music in a scene, where it’s wonderful music and it works great for something but it’s still lacking emotion. It’s not what we would consider dramatic film music.” The editor’s temp music answered some questions but raised others. “The film had original Beatles songs written into the script. But what music do you put alongside these Beatles songs to help characterize the drama that’s going on with these characters? What do we put in a film like that? And how much of it do we put in? Where do we start and stop?” These are traditionally the questions a composer would ask at the beginning of his work, but the filmmakers and Sobel were working their way through these matters prior to the composer’s participation. The filmmakers dropped in another piece of music for one scene, something from one of Christopher Young’s scores, but when Sobel heard it he didn’t think it was working well either. “I suggested they try it when we introduce Michelle Pfeifer’s character. And they hadn’t thought of that before. We moved the cue to that scene in the office and it worked like gangbusters. They loved it, because it was an open, spatial, constant percussive sound. It was slapping on the knees, like the old country hitting of the spoons on the knees, but this was like hands on pants, and it was a really inventive percussive cue. It did seem to work against the movie, and that really helped me know what my limitations might be in terms of my search.” From then on he continued to approach the creation of the temp track as a composer. “I went to Tom Newman music, I went to Chris Young music, but very subtle, softer cues. One or two of James Horner’s from some obscure scores. In my library I knew what I would go to first to see if it would work. And actually, I laid out all of the starts and stops for the film. This was a great example of when the composer came on, they watched the movie with the temp, and it was more like, ‘Alright, I know what I need to do.’ He just left and there was no problem.” The film studio and the director were pleased. She could now talk very specifically to John Powell about the score. His work had actually solved dramatic problems for her as well. Sobel concludes, “And so she could go to the table with Powell and say, ‘Okay, this is the best of what we found, and this does this for me, but it’s lacking this,’ or, ‘I really like this cue a lot. How can we emulate that? You know, what can you do to make that better, but don’t lose the fact that I love that cue.’” Powell’s score for i am sam is just what the film needed, simple and direct, authentic enough to be compatible with the Beatles songs that occurred periodically in the film,

On the track

52

natural sounding and not self-conscious. In a way, working in this way is a three-way collaboration between the director, music editor, and composer, although the three never actually worked together at the same time.

WHY FILMMAKERS USE TEMP TRACKS Sometimes I have been let down eventually when the final music was put in because the temp music was just so good. —James Goldstone, Director

You’ve got to approach it through the composer’s original vision of the film and not through a temp track, that’s my feeling. —Sam Raimi, Director

As prevalent as temp track usage is, there are directors who are reluctant to impose preexisting music on the composer. Director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, 2002), in the British film music journal Music from the Movies, states his concerns about limiting a composer: “I don’t know if you can have a brilliant score if you ask the composer to emulate the temp. That’s not really what I do because it limits the greatness of the score…. Sometimes when words fail, if you play a track for someone it can be helpful, unless the composer thinks it’s destructive to the process.” This is a much more collaborative attitude than the majority of filmmakers embrace, and one that realizes the com-poser’s potential to bring a great deal to a film when given the chance. Bob Badami, who has been Danny Elfman’s music editor for many years, wishes there were less industrywide reliance on temp tracks. “One really good thing about Edward Scissorhands (1990) was that there was no temp score. It was purely Danny. I think that was a big advantage in making that an original piece of music. You can just tell. It’s so much better when that can happen.” Director M.Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs), in an interview with Rudy Koppl for Music from the Movies, gives a fine analysis of the problems temp music can create. “Basically the moment you put anything up against a movie you’re affecting the storytelling, you’re affecting your perception of the movie. If you grab that disc that’s sitting next to you in your editing room, your collection of CDs, and say, ‘Okay, let me just put this little piece up here, I think that might be good,’ you’re deciding something for the movie. It’s fine to do that, you just have to be aware you’re doing it and know that you’re composing the score right there, right then and there when you take that CD and put it in. That’s an awesome responsibility that I don’t think people really truly understand and what happens is you’ll get scores that are derivative of each other.” Despite these concerns, there are basically four reasons why filmmakers use temp tracks: 1. To help them finish editing their film.

Preliminaries

53

2. To help them screen their film for the producer(s), studio, and/or network executives and preview audiences during various stages of postproduction. 3. To establish a concept for the score! 4. To demonstrate that concept to the composer. Temp Tracks During Editing At some point during the editing process, the film editor often begins to play around with music, trying available cues from other film scores and various record cuts to see what works. The primary reason for this is to avoid screening the film without music. There are often sequences in a rough cut that can be improved enormously with the right music. Film editor John Burnett explains a typical situation that calls for a temp track: “You can have a scene that’s running very long and should be long. If the director is very honest, and he keeps running it, over and over, and over and over, pretty soon he says, ‘Do I have to run this turkey again?’ He doesn’t really mean that, but pretty soon he feels it’s just too long, and he starts going, ‘Cut it, cut it, cut it.’ Until finally it becomes not even an entity within itself that’s worth anything. Consequently you start dissipating your movie. But all of a sudden you put in a piece of music, and then do you know what happens? They start saying, ‘Wait a minute, that’s too short.’” So that scene now has a temp track. That temp track stays in the picture for the remainder of the editing phase, right through to the fine cut and the screenings for the networks or the theatrical previews. And it becomes a part of the film during the entire process. Ken Wannberg, who began music editing for John Williams in 1973 (Tom Sawyer), points out that Steven Spielberg wants to see the dailies with music, so his editor, Michael Kahn, tracks the film as he edits. For Spielberg, this is clearly a device to assist him as the editing progresses. Temp Tracks for Screenings Writer-director David Seltzer articulates clearly the reason why everybody uses temp tracks for their screenings: “When you play your film for an audience, and there are audiences all along the way—publicity people and the executives—you find the more theatrical it is the more they respond to it.” It’s that simple. Almost everyone, including the professionals, finds their response to motion pictures heightened by the appropriate use of music on the soundtrack. Telling your audience that the film isn’t finished and that music will be added later doesn’t work on an emotional level. When you watch the film, your emotional responses are geared to the film as it is, not as it will be. In many cases the studios spend huge amounts of money on a film. In the case of a small-budget independent film, the filmmakers may feel even more pressure for their film to succeed financially. “There’s a lot that rides on those screenings,” says Badami. “Number one being, if the studio likes the movie, they’re more willing to spend money on marketing the film.” The composer can be adversely affected by these early screenings. Graeme Revell cautions composers to be at early screenings if possible to keep track of how his own

On the track

54

music might have been laid into the film. His experience on Collateral Damage (2002) is enlightening. “They were mixing it with other temp music but [director] Andy Davis was trying to take a unique approach to the Columbian part of the film by using some Columbian instruments and so on and the producer and the studio didn’t really see it that way. So I agreed to try and help the idea, and there was probably three or four cues that I wrote and then Andy probably used them in twelve situations. If I hadn’t been at the screening when the president of Warner Bros. turned around to me and said, ‘Is that your music?’ and I said, ‘Yes, but it’s being overused in the wrong places,’ I would not have finished the project.” There are typically three or four previews of the film using the temp dub (which may continue to evolve during this stage of postproduction). This may go all the way up to and through your scoring of the film. Many times the film will have its final preview with the temp dub still in. “The studio tends to not want to spend the money required to mix in all new music,” Carlin explains. “By that point, the changes are usually not great, so a temp dub can be handled in a day or two. Sometimes the updates are done directly on the Avid or Lightworks, thus avoiding the time and costs related to the dubbing stage.” Even when your final score has been dubbed into the movie for a preview, things can get nerve-wracking for a composer. Commenting about one preview he attended, Hans Zimmer said, “It went great, it went brilliantly, but I was running around with that fear because I didn’t follow the temp.” Temp Tracks to Find the Score’s Concept Even without the pressure of screenings, there are times when the director wants to begin exploring the possibilities of a particular style of music for his film’s score. Without the time restrictions and huge expenses of the scoring stage, he can search for a musical approach that appeals to him and that expresses his abstract musical impressions of his film. In fact, if he doesn’t take the time to do this during the editing stage, it can be a problem later, particularly with song-oriented soundtracks. “We’re doing a film,” says music executive Gary LeMel (president, Worldwide Music, Warner Bros. Pictures), “where the director thought that rap music would work against a particular visual, so we put that music up against it and it didn’t work at all. As it turned out, heavy metal music worked.” There are times when a director will become very involved in the creation of the temp, working with the music editor to get every note just as he wishes. Music editor Curt Sobel recalls that a director chose Marvin Hamlisch’s Sophie’s Choice (1982) score for the temp music, and then proceeded to fine-tune it. “Every chord in that score was placed against every nuance in the movie, to the frame. He’d say, ‘Now take those chords and put that over here.’ And I said, ‘But what am I going to fill the middle with?’ And he said, ‘You know what, you’ll find something from the score, I’m not worried about that.’ He composed the score, with me as his hands.” In this case the director has gone far beyond just finding an approach that works for him for his film, creating a truly insurmountable task for the composer. The director has become the composer and has a great deal of time and creative passion invested in the results. Although not always as extensive, music editor Jeff Charbonneau has had similar

Preliminaries

55

experiences many times. “There are a lot of people who are in management or are in charge of making a film and making creative decisions that get just so involved in the tedious nudgy little aspects of filmmaking that if suddenly there’s four bars of something that got into a temp, they get so used to seeing and hearing those things together that they can’t separate themselves from it, and even if someone comes up with something that’s ten times better than that they insist upon having that same thing. I would say at least 50 percent of the things that I worked on the director, producer, editor, and others would become so obsessed with what we had done with the temp score that it had to follow the flow into the final product.” Even with less detailed temp tracks, a carefully designed one can leave absolutely no doubt in the composer’s mind as to the direction the director wants to take with the score. “It is frequently the case with us that we are going to help the director decide which way to go with the music by finding music that works great in the movie,” says Carlin. Although this does often pre-empt the composer to some extent, it’s a fact of life and is inevitable during the process of creating temp tracks. On the other hand, if the composer can bring in a strong point of view of his own and demonstrate it as the film editor, music editor, and director have done with the temp track, he can make his case for another approach. The Temp Track May End Up in the Film In spite of the composer’s best efforts, there are times when the temp music may not be replaced. This can be the most difficult blow of all for composers who have created scores for temptracked films only to find out that by the end of dubbing, their score, or a good portion of it, was not in the film. As the late director James Goldstone said, “Sometimes I have been let down eventually when the final music was put in because the temp music was just so good.” Goldstone was very aware of the dangers of temp music and consequently very cautious about its use. He knew it was a trap, and consciously worked at avoiding the hazards. Here are some successful films that were released with some of the temp music on the final soundtrack (sometimes recorded specifically for the film, sometimes licensed from master recordings): • Alien (1979, Jerry Goldsmith). The film still contains a bit of music from Goldsmith’s score for Freud (1963), which had been cut into the temp track by one of the editors; a section of Howard Hanson’s Romantic Symphony is still in the film over the end titles. • Breaking Away (1979, Patrick Williams). The first half of the film uses the Mendelssohn “Italian” Symphony, excerpts from Rossini, and other operatic material, all adapted from the temp track by Williams and rerecorded for the film. • The Exorcist (1973). The original score composed for the film was not used. Instead, director William Friedkin used his avant-garde concert-music temp track. • Platoon (1986, Georges Delerue). About half of the temp score was used on the final soundtrack. Thus Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings became the main theme of the film. • The Sting (1973, adapted by Marvin Hamlisch). Most of the score was adapted and rerecorded from director George Roy Hill’s self-performed Scott Joplin temp track.

On the track

56

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The original score composed for the film by Alex North was not used; instead, director Stanley Kubrick used his own temp track. Hearing the “Blue Danube” as the space ship floated through space was at once startling and effective, and the music from Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra became the “Theme from 2001.” In many of these cases (and countless others like them) the composer actually composed a complete score for the film, not realizing that the temp music might prevail in certain areas.

HOW COMPOSERS WORK WITH TEMP TRACKS I’m actually a great defender of temp music because… it’s so great when they put in the wrong thing, because you don’t have to go down that path and make that mistake yourself. —Hans Zimmer

I actually prefer a bad temp score. You can learn more from that. —Mark Isham

Working with temp track is not difficult for me. As a matter of fact, I sort of look forward to seeing it because it’s a short cut to trying to figure out what the director is all about. —Jerry Goldsmith

Even though they know how important temp tracks may be to the future of their scores, there are composers who would rather not hear them. Some ask that the temp music be completely removed before their first screening of the film to be sure that they are not influenced one way or the other by what they would hear. “The first time I see a movie, whichever cut it is,” says Harry Gregson-Williams, “I try and make it so that it’s without any music at all. Because I think it alters one’s opinion immediately” He then uses the temp track as a reference point with the director. The big disadvantage of refusing to hear the temp track at all is that you forfeit the opportunity to discuss this music with the filmmakers. If the music has been carefully considered and represents many of the director’s decisions regarding the score, it may be difficult to understand his intentions effectively without referring to the temp track at some point. Why don’t the composers take temp tracks in their stride, watch the film and discuss them with the filmmakers, and then forget about them? Many do, but it can be almost impossible to get the temp track out of your head once you’ve heard it, especially if it’s already been dubbed into the film. If it works, it might be difficult to imagine a better

Preliminaries

57

way. And if it doesn’t work, then the chances are it will have spoiled your first emotional reactions to the film. And what’s worse, you may still have trouble getting it out of your head. Either way it can be rough. As Marvin Hamlisch explains, “The truth is that temp scores are usually the best scores. Because you get the best of the best. You’re up against them all.” Still, they can work for you. And a strong and original creative solution to a film’s score will often be heard for what it is if the composer is persuasive enough with his mockups and his commitment to his music. “There are composers a la Alan Silvestri, Thomas Newman, who really don’t give a damn about what the temp track is,” Mark Mancina points out. “They write what they write. And I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some directors that allow me to do that. A good example of that was my score to Tarzan [1999], which was not any kind of a preconceived score, you know. I didn’t have to chase or live up to anything else. Same thing with Training Day [2000]. And the same thing with Domestic Disturbance [2001]. Those were scores where the temp score really had nothing to do with what the director really wanted, it was just music they had stuck in place—in fact, we didn’t even have a temp score, really, on Domestic Disturbance. And that’s the way it should be done, that’s, to me, the best way to get a good score from a composer—let the composer and the director conceive the score from scratch, not from some preconceived Braveheart score that’s been pasted all over the movie.” Silvestri is interested in what temp tracks have to offer, but only as a way of furthering the dialogue with the director. “I want to help the director realize their vision of their film. If temp music facilitates that communication, it’s a very smart and useful tool. If it does something other than that, then it’s a detriment.” But it all depends on the creative environment you walk into when you begin a project. “Sometimes it feels like it’s wide open and there really is a genuine desire to hear an objective person’s opinion,” Christophe Beck says, “but more often than not this is something they have spent a good deal of time thinking about and talking about and trying different things and for an outsider to just come in and say, ‘No, no, it’s all wrong,’ is very disrespectful, so in that situation (and it’s pretty easy to read whether that’s the situation or not, and it usually is) then I try to be as respectful as I can to the temp. Obviously every composer tries to avoid being in a situation where they have to rip off another composer, but you can always try to find out what it is about the temp they like, maybe it’s a particular instrument, a particular feeling, rather than the whole shebang.” To do this, get deeply inside the film, feel what is there, and express it with your own music. Jerry Goldsmith comments, “I’ll come up with something that is so diametrically opposed and so different to what they had temped, and they sort of look at me and I say, ‘Well, that’s what you hire a composer for.’” Using the Composer’s Own Music for Temp Tracks Many people recommend incorporating into the temp track the composer’s music from previous scores. Whether that makes things any easier for the composer is questionable. Mark Isham thinks it makes it more difficult. “If it’s working, and it’s yours, you’ve already done it. How do you do that again?” He found an interesting way to deal with that

On the track

58

problem on October Sky (1999). “My trick was to just get Joe [Johnston] to tell me what he hated about the temp score. ‘Wouldn’t you rather have a flute in there?’ ‘Well, no— but now that you mention it—it would be great if it did!’ So we just began to tear it to shreds. And the next thing you know, I found some opinions that I could work off of. I think the main thing I did was try to make it more emotional than the temp. The temp was beautiful and it fit, but it wasn’t always as deliberately emotional as I felt it could be.” Hans Zimmer gets around this issue by preparing as much of his own new music for the film as possible to use in the temp. “Sometimes you just can’t because you haven’t had the idea yet. But if I can, that’s what I use my technology for. That’s what I use all those synths for. Gladiator, all the action sequences were cut to my music.” In addition Carlin tries to get the production company to schedule a live session early on so the composer can go on the scoring stage and record some early themes and cues. “We go in and have a three-hour session where you do a couple of transitions, you do a couple of thematic big moments—we pick isolated spots in the movie that we can now track. It gives us the basis that lets you, the composer, establish the basis for the development of the score and not me, the music editor.” Either way, using synths or acoustic instruments (or a combination of both), this is a good solution when feasible.

Preliminaries

59

This page intentionally left blank.

On the track

60

4 SPOTTING THE FILM Spotting in the old days used to take two days. Now you can go through it in half a day, because it’s temped. And also there seems to be so much more music in pictures, at least the ones I’m doing. —Jerry Goldsmith

I think the temp track tends to be the spotting. It’s the easy way to go. —Bob Badami, Music Editor

SPOTTING A FILM INVOLVES determining where music is needed, how long each cue will last, and in many cases what the function of the music will be. Most composers agree that the sensitive spotting of a film is vital to a successful score. It used to be that, despite preliminary meetings and screenings, you couldn’t start scoring to picture until the film editor had locked the picture (that is, until you could see the fine cut). Then the timings were right, the pace and flow was there, the production dialogue was in place. (At spotting, notes would usually be given regarding the placement of wild lines that might be added later.) Ideally, the sound effects were dubbed in and the special effects were finished, but typically they weren’t yet available. Until the general use of digital technology, they were indicated by grease marks scribed on the film, or with blank film timed to represent the approximate length of the effects. At that point, the film was spotted. By today’s standards this sounds absolutely idyllic. Today, if you don’t start working before the film is locked, you will find yourself on the scoring stage without any music. Cues now have titles with subheadings like “Version 6,” meaning that this particular score has been written to the sixth differently edited version of a particular scene. Special effects come in periodically during the postproduction process, but the composer may not see all of them in place until the film is released. He’ll have guidance, but not all of the final effects. So how does a composer spot under these circumstances? At some point in the postproduction process, the editing is scheduled to be completed and the spotting session has been entered on the calendar. If there is no scheduled spotting session, then there is a time at which the director and composer are scheduled to begin work together. All notes are taken as of that date, all changes made thereafter are carefully noted by the film editorial staff, and those notes are given to the music editor along with an up-to-date video version of the changed areas (possibly entire reels or even the entire film). The composer receives whatever notes he wishes plus copies of the new videos.

Preliminaries

61

In general, this changes the details of the spotting but not necessarily the overall decisions that have been reached as to where music plays and where it doesn’t, and as to what is expected of the music at those times. Decisions about the function of music and its placement in the film are very important. Many of these decisions, however, are reflected in the temp track, which in most cases may include music for most of the places in the film that the director wishes. Music editor Daniel Allen Carlin has observed the developments that have occurred over the last decade. “On features, things are evolving to the point where there are fewer and fewer actual spotting sessions—at least involving the composer. The first ‘creative’ musical discussion now usually centers around the temp score and it occurs between the music editor and the film editor and/or the director. Frequently the music editor is not given the whole show at once, but rather reel-by-reel. Usually the composer is not brought on until the whole film has been temped, and, for better or worse, many times the composer simply uses the temp track as a guide for starts and stops (and more). Having said all this, when we do in fact have spotting sessions with the composer, they take place in the cutting room and last four to six hours.” Although the temp track now determines many significant issues regarding the use of music, it is important to understand how these decisions were traditionally arrived at in spotting sessions. At these sessions are the composer, the music editor, and the director, producer, and film editor at the least. In episodic television, the associate producer may supervise the spotting session or there may be a large group representing the show, including the executive producer, the writer, the film editor, the music supervisor and the music editor. Also the sound supervisor if sound effects are being spotted at the same time. Spotting is rarely done in a projection room anymore with film and a stop-and-go, reversible projector; it’s done with video in an editing room. Some composers and music editors make an audiocassette recording of the spotting session, as well as of other meetings when the director is discussing the musical needs and meaning of the film. For them, taking notes is not fast or complete enough. If the director says, “Start music right after that line,” a cassette will have the dialogue line and his comments. The music editor is responsible for taking complete and accurate notes of all music entrances and exits, and all comments about the nature of the music. Although often lasting a day or less, spotting can take a few days if the director does not have strong preconceptions, demonstrated by his temp track, of where the music should be, or if he wishes there to be a thorough discussion of the film and its music requirements as the film is run. Ken Wannberg says that John Williams’ sessions still take two days, just as they did when they first started working together decades ago. If the spotting is pretty much locked in by a temp track, much less time may be needed. In such cases composers can check the temp track on one channel of their video of the film in order to determine the temp spotting. Carlin says, “Frequently, the composer just takes his or her cues from the temp track. It is more frequent that we never have a formal spotting session. The spotting notes are based on the temp. It becomes your responsibility as a composer to say, ‘Look, I think it works better if I start here.’” The new music the composer writes can definitely change an entrance point for a cue, and those adjustments are made as well.

On the track

62

TALKING IT OVER When you go in to spot something and you don’t know the film, it’s all coming from the director. It’s ridiculous. I like to go to a spotting session and be able to tell them exactly what’s going to happen. Then if they say, “No, I don’t need music there,” fine—but at least I know where I’m going. —Randy Edelman

Although the filmmakers come to spotting with some idea of how music will function and where, there may still be some new places for music that should be discussed. The spotting session is an ideal time for establishing meaningful dialogue between the composer and filmmakers. The composer, having studied the film on video and prespotted the film, will know the questions to ask and may have one or more approaches to present. The director will usually have made final decisions about the tone and attitude of the film, which will influence the music’s overall function. Good decisions made at the time of spotting—along with a thorough understanding of the director’s conception of what music the film needs—can avoid cues being changed or dropped, or even whole scores lost. Nobody wants this to happen—but it has happened to the majority of film composers at one time or another. Sam Raimi describes his dialogue with Christopher Young when they spotted The Gift (2000): “I would sit with Chris while the editors played the movie on the Avid. During the scene and afterwards I would then stop and tell Chris about what it was I was really intending there for the movie to be. What the character was feeling, whether it was clear or not, and how could he help me clarify that. What it was that this character wanted and what the real point of the scene was in the whole of the picture, outside of the obvious qualities that it presented. I was really trying to make him get into Cate Blanchett’s head because it’s really about her performance in this picture, that’s what the whole movie is. To understand what she was doing, feeling, thinking, and help us where we needed help—help carry the thought through so it was all a consistent vision. That’s really what I was doing, explaining the less obvious things about the picture and the moment.”

MAKING DECISIONS The most basic decisions to be made at the spotting session are: (1) which scenes will have music; and (2) where the music will start and stop. While these are important decisions, the underlying and most significant question should be: What is the right music for the film? There is no single answer to this question because—as with all artistic decisions—the answer is subjective; opinions will differ. Spotting decisions are frequently instinctive for most directors, producers, editors, and composers; although many times all parties agree with those decisions, the authority clearly rests with the director and/or the producer. When differences of opinion arise, as

Preliminaries

63

they often do, the composer needs to be certain of the director’s intentions. Tact is always important, but directness is essential; this is another good time for the composer to discuss his own ideas. Any spotting decisions that are questioned at this time will probably be tested with the composer’s original music well before scoring and/or dubbing. The spotting session may be the first time the filmmakers will see the composer actually working on their film. Through advance preparation, the composer will be able to make suggestions for the placement of and musical approach to cues, which will establish the basis for the filmmakers’ trust. If there are disagreements, discussion at this point will tell the composer a lot about the filmmakers’ attitudes.

WHEN TO USE MUSIC Very often the biggest disagreement I might have with a director on a score is simply their wanting as much music as they want. —Danny Elfman

To justify the placement of music in a scene you must know what contribution your music will be able to make. Will it establish a dramatic point of view? Will it get us inside a character’s head? Will it emphasize an emotion or provide a rhythmic pulse to drive the action forward? Allyn Ferguson says, “Sometimes the producer will ask for music, and I’ll say, ‘Why? Tell me what I’m playing.’ Many producers don’t know exactly what they mean when they say ‘music.’ ‘Well, you know, just general background.’ It doesn’t need general background. I’ve also argued for music when the producer has said, ‘No, I don’t want any music.’ At the bottom line I’ll say, ‘Let me go ahead and write a cue. You can take it out any time you want if you don’t like it. But give me a shot at it.’ Most of the time they stay in the movie.” Bruce Broughton says, “If I really don’t understand what the music is supposed to do in a particular cue, I have to ask, ‘What is it supposed to say?’ and if he says he wants it to do this and this, I’ll say, ‘Okay, I understand that.’” Curiously, certain dramatic situations, especially those with a strong sense of realism or emotion, can be weakened by the addition of music: it can turn earnest drama into maudlin melodrama; it can take the searing edge off gritty, threatening realism and make the scene safely “theatrical” so we no longer see it as reality. Finding the Right Moment Music sometimes works best in a film by being withheld until it can function in a special way. Jerry Goldsmith wants the use of music to be well considered in terms of form. “There should be a structure to the spotting of music for a film. The music isn’t just laid in idly there. Patton [1970] is a great example. It’s a three-and-a-half hour film with about 33 minutes of score in it. Frank [Schaffner, director] and I spent a great deal of

On the track

64

time deciding where the music was going to be and where it didn’t go. And I know there were a couple of places where he wanted music and when it came to writing I just couldn’t come up with it. And I went to him, and, ‘Frank,’ I said, ‘I’m not copping a plea on this, but I just don’t think there should be music there.’ And that happened on several pictures with him. And because he liked music very much, he would try to get in as much as he could.” In Sophie’s Choice (1982), the story of a Polish woman whose memories of her concentration camp internment still haunt her in New York, Marvin Hamlisch didn’t spot music for Sophie’s (Meryl Streep’s) fainting scene. “I’ve always said that an interesting way of spotting is to decide where you’re not going to have music. You have to be very careful when you use music with [the late director] Alan Pakula because he wants realism. The reason there was no music when she fainted was that we felt the fainting was still in reality and there was no relationship happening there. Fainting was hers alone. When he brings her to her bed, that’s when we started, because that’s when you need to have the feeling of there being a combination. There’s something to watch regarding the two people.” [Sophie faints at 00:27:53; music begins at 00:28:54.] In Somewhere in Time (1981), composer John Barry also spotted music to show a relationship between the two people. The film tells the story of a playwright who goes back in time and encounters his old love, lost in a previous incarnation. Barry recalls a scene in which “she’s on the stage and virtually starts to talk to him in the audience. I suggested scoring that and the director [Jeannot Szwarc] said, ‘I just don’t see music there at all.’ I said, ‘It will totally put these two people together if we put music over them.’ At that moment she’s on the stage and there’s an audience; once that music comes in and it’s theirs, the two people become totally isolated from the audience. And when the director sees me now he says that was the best cue in the movie—‘I would never have thought of that and it just worked like a charm.’ The composer has an insight—a fascinating approach to make those things really work. And they are usually the most interesting parts of the score. The obvious things usually take care of themselves.” [This cue begins at 01:13:24.] In the torrid film noir Body Heat (1981), Barry recalls, “Larry Kasdan (on his first film as director) and I had talked about the early Bogart movies in terms of style and feel, so we knew the ballpark we were in. His editor was also very aware of the function of music. There were very obvious places where Larry wanted music, but it’s always the less obvious places where a composer is more helpful—where you suggest music in a certain area and he says, ‘I would never have thought of music there, but let’s do it.’ Those are the dark areas for directors where they really don’t see it.” Here are some moments in films that do not have music. Although the dramatic intensity of the situation might have suggested that music play the scene, it is the nature of any individual film that determines the spotting. • American Beauty (1999, Thomas Newman). The murder has no music (01:51:33), although it is scored before and after by soft, ethereal electronic music. There is no music for Lester’s (Kevin Spacey’s) wife (Annette Bening) as she cries after showing the house (00:12:38, on cut to Carolyn closing the blinds). • The Green Mile (1999, Thomas Newman). There is no music for the first electrocution scene, only music as the guards prepare the prisoner, which goes out at 00:44:13, prior

Preliminaries

65

to the beginning of the execution. There is no music when the warden, Hal (James Cameron) tells Paul (Tom Hanks) about his wife’s brain tumor. Paul enters Hal’s office at 00:51:25; at the end of the scene, after Hal says, “She’s going to die,” music starts at 00:53:18 on a close up of the warden crying. • Titanic (1997, James Horner). There is no music as Jack (Leonard DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) say goodbye while she is lowered toward the water in a life raft (at 2 hours and 50 minutes). • Unbreakable (2000, James Newton Howard). This film is spotted relatively lightly. There is no music for most of David’s (Bruce Willis’) soul-searching scenes as he tries to understand his situation and considers what it all might mean to him. Starts and Stops Some composers find opportunities to take advantage of the effect of pauses in the music. In the library sequence in Ghostbusters (1984), Elmer Bernstein’s music comes in and out several times. Bernstein notes, “I’ve always felt that once you have music in a film the music makes a comment; stopping the music also makes a comment, and I’ve always liked using it in that way. In the case of Ghostbusters or in any film comedy the spotting is definitely something I would do with the director. In this rather complex library scene, there was a lot of discussion with Ivan Reitman about those stops and starts.” (This sequence begins at 00:08:20.) Find a Point of View In spotting director Blake Edwards’s films, the late Henry Mancini said that he didn’t pay any attention to the comedy: “If I do it’s in an overall sense—it’s like dropping a canvas. I think the Main Title for the original Pink Panther (1964) sums up the whole approach. That was a cartoon, an animated piece of film. I think that piece of film would have been scored differently at Disney. You know. Inspector Clouseau never had a theme until the fourth or fifth picture because I always felt that Peter [Sellers] was fully capable of having a scene go on his own. So I just stayed out of the way of most of his routines, and Blake never mentioned it because we have a shorthand we use together. And it was a case where I never thought it should be played, he never asked, and that was it.”

STARTING A CUE In general, music starts most effectively at a moment of shifting emphasis. This might be expressed as: 1. A new emotional emphasis or subject in the dialogue. 2. A new visual emphasis with the camera. 3. A camera move in connection with emotional emphasis; camera moves are almost always conceived for emphasis. 4. A new action, such as a car driving off, a person leaving the room, a cop ducking behind a barrier.

On the track

66

5. A reaction to something that has been said or has occurred (note that this is also an emotional response). Sometimes this new emphasis coincides with an editorial cut to a new shot or angle; keep in mind that the edit isn’t the focus of the drama—it is the drama that is the center of our attention. If the best place to start is on a cut, fine. However, it is just as effective to start between cuts. Let the drama, not the editing, be the motivation to start the music. How to Start Do you start the cue with an aggressive, accented entrance, or with a soft lead-in? The sole criterion is the style and nature of the film and the function of the score at that particular moment. Directorial preference will be important also. Some directors and composers dislike stingers (heavy music accents on a dramatic shot or moment, like the discovery of a dead body or the reaction to a villain’s verbal threat), especially at the start of a cue. In broad comedy or heavy melodrama, these musical accents may be appropriate. This is called “hitting the action” or “catching the action” (see Chapter 10). On the other hand, a soft entrance on a dramatic moment or emotional reaction shot can elicit a very strong response from the audience. It can be chilling, ominous, threatening, poignant. If in doubt, discuss this with the director, as the ways in which your score plays the drama is an extremely significant factor.

ENDING A CUE When to End Just as you will start a cue for emotional emphasis (whether soft or loud) you will end either for emphasis or de-emphasis, at a moment when the dramatic moment or action shifts again (to a different subject, level of emotion, or visual or scene). Sometimes the cut or dissolve to the next scene will feel like the perfect place to end the cue, tailing out under the following dialogue. Sometimes the intrusion of another person or element in an emotional scene or reverie will break the mood, and the music, following this shift in emphasis, will tail out at that time. Sometimes there just doesn’t seem to be a good place to get out of the cue—no convenient sound effect to cover music going out, no timely cut to the next scene. The scene just keeps going, but the music goes out, without apparent motivation. For some reason, this can work better than you would guess. Sometimes when the music goes out, even if it seems arbitrary, it will slightly emphasize the next dialogue or action, and in so doing becomes a part of the dramatic fabric. The reasons for ending a cue in the middle of a scene are: (1) the music has gone on as long as it should, and to continue will diminish its effectiveness; (2) the music must enter again shortly, and will be much more effective dramatically if there has been a silence prior to the new entrance; (3) if allowed to continue, the music will actually hurt the dramatic impact of the scene, even though it has been needed up to this point.

Preliminaries

67

How to End You have two choices when ending a cue: to end with a held chord or note (either sustained or sustained with a decrescendo and designed to tail out in the mix); or to end with a sharp accented note or cutoff (a hard out). Most of the time the flow of the film will suggest tailing out, but in action movies and thrillers the reverse may be true on hard-driving action cues and intense suspenseful tension cues. When you can end a cue with a hard out, it is an effective variation, both in dramas and comedies. When the style of the film allows, it is worth trying to work in some of these cue endings for variety, and for the extra dramatic punch they give the score.

SHORT CUES, TRANSITIONS, AND LONG CUES After being a part of movie and radio musical language during the thirties, forties, and fifties, for years very short cues (:05 to :15) were generally avoided in most features, with the exception of genre films that count on short cues as part of the overall effect (horror films and broad comedies, for example). Even now, most directors and composers try to avoid them if possible, preferring to let the music continue once it starts, so that it can make a strong and effective statement. James Horner dislikes short cues. “I like to have cues run for a long period of time because you can then be much more manipulative in a way. Because you are not aware of the music.” Nevertheless, short cues have now become part of the vocabulary of film music again and are used as required to smooth out dramatic transitions or make a dramatic point as needed (generally in genre films). In television, short cues and bridges are used more frequently for all types of series and films, and many times these short cues would not be spotted if the film were a feature. The effect of a long cue can be achieved even if there are several stops and starts during the course of an eight-minute section. This can have more dramatic power than maintaining continuity in the music with rhythm or sustained notes. Horner scored the long hotel shoot-out sequence in 48 Hours (1982) as though it was one cue, but with starts and stops along the way (beginning at 00:16:04). On long sequences, especially those involving faster tempo music or highly intense, dramatic music, the cue is typically divided into shorter segments (each a separate cue). These related segments are constructed to blend into one another. A common method is to overlap the end of the outgoing cue with the start of the incoming one, usually with a sustained note or chord, but other ways work equally well (for instance, ending the outgoing cue with an accent and then beginning the next cut on that beat, but without repeating the accented material). As an example, Christopher Young composed a very long piece of music for the ending action sequence in Entrapment (1999) and then broke it down into a number of shorter segments, each given a separate cue number and title and recorded separately during scoring.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ACTING

On the track

68

If the acting is extraordinary in a scene and relentlessly pulls the audience into the film, the criteria changes for the spotting of music. Where you might have guessed music would be required, none is needed or even wanted; the moment speaks eloquently enough on its own and the scene will resist any attempt to add music. By the same token, if you find out that what’s on the screen doesn’t have the impact it should, then you may want to jump in to bring out some of the missing emotional/dramatic qualities. This gets back to audience expectations. Unless the film establishes another set of guidelines (as does farce, for instance) the audience will always expect credibility. If the film is not credible, at least in its own terms, the audience won’t buy it and the film won’t work for them.

THE DIRECTOR COMMUNICATES Sometimes discussions with the director during spotting can become very involved with style and musical content. Laurence Rosenthal, while working on the miniseries Peter the Great (1986), found the spotting sessions with director Marvin Chomsky to be very detailed; they discussed “exactly what the character of the music ought to be. We really got to the point where we were talking about what the absolute function of the music in this scene was. Why is the music there at all? What does it say? Does it really need to be there? And if it does, what is it that the scene can’t do without? What is not being seen on the screen that the music can provide? Things like that were discussed in detail.” There are times when a few directorial comments can be sufficient, particularly if it appears that the temp track is fully expressing the intentions of the director and the essence of the film. However, the temp track will rarely tell you everything you need to know, and should not be trusted as a reliable resource in answering many of the questions that will come up regarding the function of music in that particular film. (See Chapter 10 for more about the many issues that you will be considering when scoring a film.) Trying It Out In ’night, Mother (1986) Sissy Spacek plays a girl who feels she must prepare her mother for her planned suicide. David Shire found that “the main opportunity to use music was in the first two reels—the only place where there’s no dialogue for a while, where she’s setting up the house and before the dialogue actually begins. Again for the end title we just felt there was room to make this positive statement musically. Both [director] Tom Moore (who was doing his first movie) and I adored the original play, which doesn’t have a note of music in it, and we were both nervous about using music in the film. What we finally decided was that the music should emphasize whatever positive element there was in the picture, and that was Jessie’s courage, her almost Apollonian removal from what you would normally expect as the mood of a girl who’s going to kill herself in an hour. She’s made peace with herself and with her life, and there is an almost detached courageousness about the way she goes about it. “We went through twice, spotting it, and it was like a hearttransplant patient rejecting the organ—you’d put music up against it and you’d feel the movie almost physically

Preliminaries

69

pushing the music away. I did something with Tom that I’d done before with Herb Ross on Max Dugan Returns [1983]—I rented a piano to put in the editing room when we spotted. Then as we reached those places where we weren’t sure if we should have music I played it on the piano while they ran the film. Tom was used to working on musicals with dance pianists sitting there at the upright improvising stuff. And as we’d get to some scene in the movie he’d say, Try playing the theme under this.’ I’d play four notes and he’d say, ‘Stop!’ This was really a safe and sane way to work.” Today mockups and temp music normally would be the materials used to test the spotting in such a situation, but the principle is the same.

SPOTTING NOTES AND TIMING NOTES After spotting the film, the music editor prepares a music breakdown (the spotting notes) listing the music cues and numbering them in a coding system in which the first digit signifies the reel number and the next digits give the cue number within the reel. 1M1 (or M11, or 1/1) means Reel 1, Cue 1. Some composers like to take spotting notes as backup for reference. This way there is another record of the length of the cues and their function, which can be used until the music editor’s notes arrive. These notes are typically faxed over within a matter of hours after the end of the spotting session. As already discussed, the composer may suggest to the music editor (either at the spotting session or at any time thereafter) that a cue be divided into two or more shorter cues. This might be done to avoid conducting an eight- or nine-minute cue, or possibly to orchestrate the two resultant shorter cues with different-size orchestras. After preparing the spotting notes, the music editor will prepare timing notes for each cue, making a detailed list of all dialogue and action within every shot with all timings relative to the cue start. This is done either from SMPTE time-coded videotape or digitized video. Usually the composer will not require nor want detailed timing notes, that is, cue-bycue timing breakdowns. Carlin says, “We still do timing notes but we find out that it’s more a service for us rather than the composer.” He wants the music editor to be able to quickly find any significant reference point in any cue so it can be easily located on the scoring stage. “They still serve as a great reference and time saver on the scoring sessions.” But composers simply lock up their video copies of the film or digitized video on the computer and they are in sync. Many don’t need the notes, although some composers use them as a reference as they work. Terminology In the course of doing timing notes for a film, there are hundreds of shots to be described, and over the years music editors have developed a vocabulary and a set of abbreviations to describe scenes efficiently. These terms are universal and should be learned, although if you don’t ever get timing notes you may never see them. Here are the principal ones:

On the track

70

BG

background

CAM

camera

CHOPPER SHOT

high-angle shot from helicopter, typically combined with a zoom shot

CINEMA VERITE [vareee-tay]

documentary style, usually with hand-held camera

CIRCULAR DOLLY

shot as dolly-mounted camera circles subject

CU

close-up

CUT (BUTT CUT)

direct cut from one shot to another

CUTAWAY or REACTION SHOT

frame shows secondary figure reacting to previous shot

DIAL

dialogue

DISS

dissolve—simultaneous fade-in and fade-out of consecutive shots

DOLLY SHOT

shot from dolly-mounted moving camera

EOL or EL

end of line of dialogue

EXT

exterior

FI

fade-in from black

FF

freeze frame: one frame is multiple-printed to appear as a still picture

FO

fade-out to black

FX

effects: sound effects

INT

interior

LA CAMERA

shot from a low angle

MATTE SHOT

shots in which portions of frame show different images through matte techniques

LS

long shot, full shot

MS

medium shot

MX

music

NARR

narration

O.S.

off-screen (voice, sound)

PAN

panorama shot: camera rotates, revealing sweep of scene

PIX

picture

Preliminaries

71

POP-INS

scene elements that suddenly appear (titles, people)

POV

from the point of view of named actor

SOURCE MUSIC

music that appears to come from the scene; music the actors hear

SUBJECTIVE CAMERA

frame shows what the actor’s eyes see, usually by handheld camera

SUPER

superimposition of two images (a double exposure)

SWISH PAN

a fast blurred pan

TRAVELING MATTE trick shot with matte techniques 2-SHOT

two subjects in frame (usually people)

3-SHOT

three subjects in frame

SYNC SOUND

sound from people or objects in the frame and in sync with them

UNDERSCORE

supporting music, which the audience hears but the actors don’t

V.O.

voice over: a voice that does not lip-sync with subject in frame

XCU or ECU

extreme close-up

XLS or ELS

extreme long shot

ZOOM IN

optical effect of coming closer to subject

ZOOM OUT

optical effect of subject receding

Formats In general, the formats of most spotting notes and timing notes are similar. Figure 4.1 is the spotting notes and Figure 4.2 is a music summary sheet (a short form of the spotting notes) for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). The content and style of the music editor’s timing notes vary from a minimal description of the frame contents to an interpretive description that almost relates the story line. Detailed Notes The late music editor Erma Levin, who was very adept at preparing descriptive timing notes, said, “I usually ask composers, ‘How do you like your timings, in tenths or hundredths? Do you like it close? Do you like it loose? Do you like it in lines of action? Do you like it cut for cut?’ I try to give a summary of what is going on on the screen so that he can visualize it. Sometimes that’s an adverb or an adjective describing the action. One thing I think is essential, though, is never to preempt a point of view.” She differentiated between the ending of a dialogue line and the cut to the next shot and

On the track

72

always indicated the timing of important events within the shot. If information you require is not there, ask the music editor to supply it. Like Levin, the late music editor Gene Marks also liked to be as descriptive as possible. “My timing notes are probably much more detailed than those that many music editors give today,” Marks said in 1986. “They’re almost small novellas in many instances. And one of the most important things I do when I’m timing for a composer is use adjectives and adverbs. I think the more they are used, the easier that makes it for the composer. To say a man comes through the door at :04.7 is meaningless. But if you say he comes through the door with a snarl on his face or he comes through the door happily or he comes through the door dejectedly—that tells the composer, I believe, what mood he should be writing.” See Figure 4.3 for an excerpt from the timing notes for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Videocassettes and Digitized Video Composers now invariably receive a videocassette dub of the film, and more and more are having it digitized so it can play directly on their computer.

CHANGES IN THE SPOTTING AFTER SCORING Spotting is never locked in completely. Just as the composer may make adjustments during the composing of the score (conferring with the director on these changes), the director might make changes in the spotting of the cues when he is on the dubbing stage. Cues may be moved from one spot to another, added (frequently, at the director’s request, through duplication by the music editor of part or all of another cue), or dropped completely. Edward Shearmur had scored the first sword fight in The Count of Monte Cristo (2002), but during dubbing the director, Kevin Reynolds, decided to leave it out. “I think Kevin felt that he didn’t really want to over-Hollywood it in a way. Not that the cue was in fact particularly Hollywood. I think he felt that to play it stark like that actually was more of a comment on the betrayal than anything else.” (Prior music ends at 00:23:56, as the swordfight begins.)

SCORE LENGTHS Music score lengths vary widely within each of the main categories of feature films, television movies-of-the-week, television miniseries, and television episodes. The accompanying table offers some samples—but keep in mind, though, that more music may have been spotted and recorded than used. Category

Composer

Music

Film Length

Preliminaries

73

Feature Films American Beauty

Thomas Newman

53 minutes

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

George S.Clinton

40–45 minutes 92 minutes

Chocolat

Rachel Portman

45 minutes

105 minutes

Mission Impossible

Danny Elfman

60 minutes

110 minutes

Out of Africa

John Barry

35 minutes

120 minutes

Star Trek III

James Horner

76 minutes

105 minutes

Training Day

Mark Mancina

73 minutes

120 minutes

Vertical Limit

James Newton Howard 88 minutes

123 minutes

What Lies Beneath

Alan Silvestri

126 minutes

60 minutes

121 minutes

Television Miniseries The Blue and the Gray

Bruce Broughton

2 1/2 hours

8 hours

Dream West

Fred Karlin

2 1/2 hours

7 hours

North and South

Bill Conti

4 hours

12 hours

Television Movies Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

Fred Karlin

50 minutes

96 minutes

Television Series (average per episode) Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Christophe Beck

18–30 minutes 48 minutes

Haunted

Mark Snow

20 minutes

48 minutes

Six Feet Under

Richard Marvin

10 minutes

48–56 minutes

Spin City

Danny Pelfrey

3–4 minutes

26 minutes

Surprisingly, sometimes the score will turn out to be shorter than the composer expected. Bruce Broughton says, “On The Blue and the Gray [1982], which was 8 hours long, we ended up with 2 1/2 hours of music, which I felt was very underspotted, and I worried about that a lot.” He checked his instincts against the videotape, and then in discussions with the music editor, Erma Levin. Although he did add another cue or two, he was reassured to find that basically Levin felt the overall spotting was fine. “And I have to say that by the time the picture was done it didn’t have much music but it played just fine.” Out of Africa (1985) had only about 35 minutes of music in the 2 hour and 41 minute film. John Barry says, “People think there was a lot of music, a lot more than there was, because when it was there [director] Sydney [Pollack] went with the music—like the flying scene, when it was very up-front.” How the music is used can have significant impact on the audience’s overall impression of how much music there is. Having spotted the film, the composer’s first thoughts may have nothing at all to do

On the track

74

with music. Even as he is spotting, he may be adding up the total number of minutes of music in the score, considering the size of the orchestra and the number of sessions he might need to record the score. There are many inescapable business decisions to be considered now. To deal with them successfully the composer needs to know the facts and figures. FIGURE 4.1 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets spotting notes. Prepared by Jim Harrison, Segue Music.

Preliminaries

75

On the track

76

FIGURE 4.2 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets music summary sheets. Prepared by Jim Harrison, Segue Music.

Preliminaries

77

On the track

78

Preliminaries

79

On the track

80

FIGURE 4.3 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets cue 2m11A timing notes. Prepared by Jim Harrison, Segue Music.

Preliminaries

81

On the track

82

Preliminaries

83

On the track

84

5 BUDGETS AND SCHEDULES I always tell the composer, as soon as you’ve spotted the movie, call me. —Sandy de Crescent, Music Contractor

It is very important for young composers, especially on hourly episodes, to really understand how to break down an orchestra, how to get the most out of it within budgetary limitations. —Bodie Chandler, former Vice President of Music, Columbia Pictures Television

IT MAY SEEM COMPLETELY illogical to be planning the budget before the music is written, or even before developing a clearcut concept of the music. But every music decision has a price tag that must be considered and agreed upon before the composer can proceed: how many musicians will the budget accommodate, how many minutes of music, how much studio time for overdubbing and postmixing? The budgets will have been established long before the composer begins, but it is always better if the discussion of budgets comes after the spotting and the conceptual talks with the director. By then the amount of required music will be known and desired orchestra sizes made clear. In any case, the question of costs will quickly come up, long before the composer has composed anything or is sure of his final orchestral needs. In episodic television, the orchestra size and time allotted to record a show are pretty much locked in once the series gets past the pilot stage. When there will be an orchestra of some sort being paid for by the production company, the composer is told what the orchestra makeup is and the number of hours budgeted for recording. Some extra instruments may be added for occasional special script needs. In 2002, though, there were very few shows with orchestras of any size. Most shows will be self-performed by the composer with perhaps an occasional live musician or two. These shows are almost always package deals in which the composer is responsible for all music production costs (with certain exceptions) required for delivering the finished score. On package deals, every budget decision has a direct impact on the composer’s income, because he only earns the amount left after all expenses have been paid out of the negotiated fee. On movies made for television, miniseries, and feature films, precise orchestra sizes will not have been set in advance. As a rule, the total music budget for each specific project will have been worked out by the supervising music executive after he has looked at the script and talked to the producer (and director, if one has been engaged at this

Preliminaries

85

point). Together they try to forecast the amount of music needed and the likely orchestra sizes. The amount of money available for musicians, composing, orchestrating, and all other music expenses will not include any money required to license any songs.

COST FACTORS Basic factors that affect the cost are: 1. The size and makeup of the orchestra(s), including the number of instrument doubles and overscale players. 2. The number of minutes of music. 3. The amount of extra studio time needed for prerecording, song recording, and postmixing. 4. The difficulty of the music (and therefore the amount of time potentially necessary to record it). 5. The usage of electronic instruments with the orchestra (which can be time-consuming and add costly cartage and instrument rental). The composer must always ask which elements are part of the music budget, because it will vary from project to project. Depending on his deal with the producer, the composer may be responsible for all the costs (a package deal), or he may be estimating costs (aside from his fee) to establish with the producer or music executive that they are within the music budget. The music budget usually includes studio costs, orchestration (a negotiable item), union Pension and Health and Welfare payments, payroll taxes, music preparation (copying and other music library work), and the rental and cartage of instruments. Music contractor Sandy De Crescent, who has worked on all Universal Pictures projects since 1969 as well as numerous independent films, says that establishing the actual music budget is not always as simple as it might be. “What so often happens is the composer sees the movie, he hears what’s needed, and the director’s saying, ‘Oh, sure, anything you want,’ and then the music department says, ‘Oh, no, no, no, no. That’s not going to fly.’ And sometimes it turns out that the communication is so horrible that no one has said to the guy, ‘Well, look, no, no, this is something that’s got to be all synths.’ And it sounds ridiculous, but it happens.” As a rule this is because although the major studios have music department executives, there are many independents with no one person in charge of the business details of the music for the film. When De Crescent is on an independent project, she calls to find out who to talk to about the music budget. Package Deals Because these deals are so prevalent, it is important to understand some of the potential pitfalls of taking on total responsibility for all music production costs.

On the track

86

Sandy De Crescent. First, you are agreeing to provide all the music for the project, excluding the licensing of any songs and other preexisting music the producers may wish to include in the film. Typically production expenses of any song material (whether original for the film or preexisting to be rerecorded for the soundtrack) are excluded from package deals, although this must be stipulated at the time the deal is made. Unless you protect yourself, you may think you are going to be composing and recording about 40 minutes of music at the time you make your deal only to learn when you spot that the director actually wants you to deliver significantly more music. Unless you protect yourself in your original arrangement with the producer you will be responsible for as much music as is required. This is the usual situation when the composer gets a creative fee with the production company paying all expenses, so you must be careful with a package deal (see Chapter 25). You may also find that your initial idea that a self-performed synth score will be perfect for the film is incorrect, because the director actually wants to hear at least 30 musicians. Usually the production company will stipulate their expectations in advance, naming a specific number of musicians they expect, (for example, “no less than 30 musicians,” or even, “no more than 20 musicians”). Get their requirements in writing as part of the contract when signing the deal. This may also include some provision for extra money in the event there are rewrites necessitating rescoring required by the production company. Planning Orchestra Sessions If there are going to be live orchestra sessions of any size, in addition to calculating the total number of minutes of music in the film, a breakdown is needed of how many minutes of music are to be played by each size orchestra. Film scoring sessions are

Preliminaries

87

routinely organized to record first all the music cues for the largest orchestra without regard to their sequence in the film. Cues that require smaller instrumentations are recorded either during subsequent sessions or after the larger orchestra is dismissed on any given day of recording. Music executive Bodie Chandler points out, “If you have a budget that allows you only 27 salaries for 4 hours, you may know that’s not going to work because your musical needs require more players. You have to learn how to be able to use the orchestra to your best advantage. If you want 30 instruments, or 30 salaries, for 3 hours, do a portion of the score with that orchestra and then break it down and do the rest with a smaller combo. Know how to set up your music; look through the spotting notes so you can say, “These 5 cues are big cues; I’m going to use the big orchestra. The rest don’t require a big orchestra; I can save them for later in the session and cut down to just the violins and a harp.” On the miniseries Sadat (1983), composer Charles Bernstein worked with Chandler to produce a big score within a tight budget. He used A, B, and C orchestras. “When the budget is this tight,” Bernstein says, “and you have to worry about who’s doubling what, and about avoiding too many doubles, I make out a chart in which all the cues are listed from top to bottom, and across the graph I put the instrumentation. And then I can see the entire session, and see who’s playing what instrument on what cue, and in what orchestral ensemble. In my largest orchestra, which I only had for 3 hours, I had 16 violins, 4 violas, 4 celli, and 2 double basses—I put a lot of my resources into the number of violin players, as you can tell; I had 2 trumpets, 3 French horns, 2 trombones, and 1 bass trombone doubling tuba; I had 3 woodwinds for that 3-hour session; and I had 3 percussion, harp, and piano—in the percussion section I had cimbalom (a mallet player), another playing timps, chimes, and vibes, and another one playing various tom-toms and what have you. That was 42 players. But after 3 hours that orchestra was gone. And then it dropped down to 34 players, and then down to 26 players. The majority of the score was done with 26 players.” Planning this kind of a recording schedule takes many hours, often over several days, requiring the composer to exercise great discipline in the studio. A basic large studio orchestra is listed on page 328. The largest orchestras can go up to 100 musicians or more; smaller ones may be as little as 20-plus to 30-something.

FIGURING COSTS You may decide to score your film with union musicians (including yourself), or with nonunion musicians (see later in this chapter). For the moment, let’s assume you are scoring with union musicians, because this will give you an idea of the general process of recording film scores and therefore illustrate a way to work out your budget. There are a great many advantages to working with the union, including the consequent availability of an extraordinarily high level of musicianship and professionalism. Don’t be afraid to contact contractors to get to know them and ask questions. If the budget is tight, you can determine the number of hours needed for each size orchestra by planning to record a specific average number of minutes of music per hour (during which the American Federation of Musicians (A. F. of M.) agreement calls for

On the track

88

the musicians to play for 50 minutes and have 10 minutes off as a break). Bear in mind, it takes solid experience in the studio and very good work habits and techniques to be able to record more than 2 or 3 minutes of film music an hour. As examples, James Horner might record 2 or 3 minutes an hour; John Williams 3 1/2 to 4; Jerry Goldsmith perhaps 2 1/2. Television scoring sessions move faster. It is not unusual for a television score with 30 minutes of music to be recorded in two 3-hour sessions (called a double session). The minimum-session call time is for 3 hours with overtime prorated (without overtime premium pay) in 15-minute segments. (The exception is that the 7th hour of recording within an 8-hour period pays 120 percent, and a musician required to remain into the 5th hour of a 3-hour session or the 8th hour of a 6-hour double session is paid 150 percent of the straight time.) Once the 3-hour minimum session is completed, some musicians may be dismissed for the day while others are still in session. Main Titles and End Credits (also called the formats in episodic television) can take somewhat longer to record, while source music takes less than average because it is usually recorded wild. Every musician can have a different length call: The strings might have a 4-hour call, the trumpets a 3 1/2-hour call, and the trombones a 3-hour call, depending on how much music each musician has to record. In any event, a 3-hour call is the minimum. If only 5 hours are needed for the session, consideration must be given to the mandated one-hour meal break for musicians, which must be taken sometime between noon and 2 P.M. or 6 to 8 P.M.. For a 5-hour morning call, this necessitates an 8 A.M. start to allow for up to an hour of recording time beyond their calls if necessary. Minimum Union Scales There are several different A.F. of M. master agreements: Theatrical Motion Picture, Television Film, Television Videotape, Television and Radio Commercial Announcements, and Documentary and Industrial Films. According to agreements in force until February 2004, the minimum 3-hour single-session recording scale for theatrical and television films for an orchestra of 35 or more is $253.07 per musician, and each 15-minute overtime segment is $21.09. Players of “electronic musical devices” (synths, etc.) at the producer’s option may be paid a specific fee proscribed by the A.F. of M. This special rate includes all electronic and acoustical doubles and all overdubs. Renegotiated every three years by producers and union representatives, these agreements include rates for doubling instruments, overtime, premium time, contractor, conductor, orchestration, copying, Pension and Welfare, Health and Welfare, and instrument cartage. The most in-demand studio players charge either scaleand-one-half or double scale, or a guaranteed instrument double (which guarantees them scale-and-onehalf even if they don’t play a second instrument). The concertmaster, first cello, first French horn, and other first chair musicians usually get double scale (scale-and-one-half for television). All overscale fees should be clarified in discussions with the contractor. In Hollywood, the contractor as a rule will get triple scale for features, and double scale for television. In tight budget situations, this is negotiable. The doubling premiums for any musician who plays more than one instrument during a single session include 50 percent extra for the first double and 20 percent extra for each

Preliminaries

89

double thereafter. Instruments within the following groups are not construed as doubling (and get no additional doubling fees): (a) piano and celeste (when furnished); (b) drummer’s standard outfit; (c) timpani; (d) mallet instruments: xylophone, bells, and marimbas; (e) Latin rhythm instruments when used in less than eight bars in connection with other instruments, not used in a rhythm pattern. However, alto flute, flute, and piccolo are considered to be three separate instruments and must be paid doubling percentages if they are not the primary instrument. There is a low-budget motion picture agreement that the union has structured in order to reduce the expenses of recording music for those films. Beginning in February 2003, the scale per musician (that is, one salary unit) was $169.26 for a three-hour session, with a low budget film being defined as one costing less than $27 million. Beginning in February 2004, that rate will increase and low-budget films will be those costing no more than $29.5 million. In television, low budget is defined as $2.575 million or less per program hour, with an increase to $2.652 million or less beginning in February 2004. A new contract will be negotiated thereafter, most likely with similar changes. Always check with the union for the current most accurate rates; you will need to learn about vacation pay (included in the low-budget rates but extra otherwise), Health and Welfare payments, and Pension (10% of scale in 2004). Overdubbing Restrictions Union agreements forbid overdubbing (recording additional parts to add to a cue’s print take) with the same personnel on the same session without paying those who overdub a duplicate fee for each overdub pass. Stacking the parts (rhythm first, then strings, for instance) is permissible if the entire orchestra remains on the session and is paid accordingly. As alternatives to that, the rhythm section can start earlier than the rest of the orchestra, or any members of the orchestra can overdub at a separate session (so that music recorded in the morning, for instance, may be overdubbed during the afternoon session). Copying Costs The extraction of orchestra parts by copyists is covered by minimum union scales, but it is a budget item that is difficult to estimate or control for a specific project because it is based on union-scale page rates for music that at this point has not been written, and therefore has an unknown number of bars. There is a big difference in copying expense between fast and slow music because of the much greater bar counts in fast music. One known factor is the cost of transposing parts from a concert-pitch score, which adds approximately 50 percent to the copying expense for any transposed part. Considering that the transposing instruments (clarinets, English horns, alto flutes, saxophones, French horns, trumpets, and so on) comprise 25 to 30 percent of the parts to be copied in some orchestras, a typical concert pitch score could cost 15 percent more to copy than a transposed score. The best estimates of the overall copying costs come from previous experience blended with the composer’s knowledge of whether his music will be fast or slow, and

On the track

90

orchestrated in concert or transposed score. Consulting with a copyist experienced in preparing film music is your best bet in estimating this aspect of your budget. Once this estimate is made, be sure to add an additional 25 percent on top of that for the supervising copyist’s charge, unless you know there will be enough time for most or all of the score to be copied by one person. Finally, consider the amount paid by the hour for photocopying large score pages and various instrumental parts and binding the scores with tape, plus the cost of paper, a messenger service, and other miscellaneous expenses—these charges can add up to hundreds of dollars. Other Costs Cartage costs in Hollywood are substantially higher in practice than the union’s minimum cartage fees and are billed by instrument-moving companies—the biggest bills being for drums, percussion, guitars, and electronic keyboards, with their associated amplifiers and processors. Rental of instruments can be significant and must also be included. Singers Singers work through the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) for theatrical films and television films, or the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) for any nonfilm medium on television, including videotape. The details of any of these union agreements should be obtained through vocal contractors, or through inquiry at those union offices. Note that the orchestra contractor does not contract the singers.

WORKING WITH A SMALL BUDGET Whether or not you decide to file a union contract with theA. F. of M., there are ways to keep your expenses down. If you have your own home studio, obviously the least expensive way is to self-perform your score with electronics and sampling (see Chapter 20). The use of one or two live musicians on some cues also may be within the scope of your facility. With anything more elaborate for which you need a professional recording studio or scoring stage, contractor David Low has a cautionary word of advice: “Obviously taking a ten piece group into a large room at a great expense is probably not your best option.” He suggests calling around to see about smaller studios. Unless you have digitized the film from video into your computer, you will need a facility that will be able to provide video playback for syncing the music to the film. Low continues, “Sometimes we communicate with different providers of services and then if it’s a negotiation I’ll leave it to the composer or the composer’s agent to be involved in some of those things. Anything to be able to keep the orchestra a healthy size and yet where everybody feels everybody’s working together.” Nonunion musicians are available. Depending on the rest of your requirements, it may cost little more to hire a first-class musician to play your trumpet solos than a lessexperienced nonunion player. On the other hand, composer Christophe Beck points out,

Preliminaries

91

“I would just say for somebody just starting out, barter with other composers. They may know some composers who were instrumentalists and maybe they could come over and play a little trumpet on something, that kind of a thing. You know, if you’re doing a really low budget production, even an amateur trumpet player who doesn’t play trumpet for a living would sound better than a sample, even if it’s not an A list session player. If it’s simple enough, of course.” On an independent film with a limited budget, the production company may suggest (or insist upon) recording somewhere other than Los Angeles. This could be anywhere in the world, including Seattle or Salt Lake City (both with nonunion recording orchestras), London, or various cities in Europe and elsewhere. Opinions vary greatly among musicians, composers, contractors, and producers as to how effective a money-saving idea this is in reality. “In the end,” Sandy De Crescent says, “what’s so ridiculous about it is that they spent more going to Seattle than they would have in L.A. Not only having to redo the sessions sometimes, but they stay in nice hotels and with the per diem and the airfare, it’s ridiculous. And we’re so fast here.” Gaining experience with a good notation program may make it possible for you to print out any parts you might need for live sessions without hiring a copyist. The economic advantages of this are obvious, but the disadvantage is that you won’t have the backup a professional music copyist/librarian can give you in the area of music preparation. This would include the very important function of proofreading, which ultimately might save you a tremendous amount of otherwise expensive time on the scoring stage if there are mistakes in the music that need to be researched and corrected during your sessions. David Low has contracted for composers on a lot of lowbudget movies, and offers this advice: “I’ve done movies where the budget’s so small and they want to get so much music recorded, we’ve done 7, 8, 9 minutes of music an hour. And that has to do a lot with the flexibility of the composer. Or they’ll go on a day when a lot of great guys are available and those people want to help the younger composers, and they’re paid properly and they’re good enough where you can put the music in front of them and you can just record. And that’s what you do, you just record. And you record everything. “Everything’s got to be ready. The orchestration has to be correct, the director or producers have to sign off on everything. Then I’ve seen it happen. Some things come out great and some things, they just get done. Because the guys here can play that level; that’s really, of course, the key. And if you get into a good small room that can go that fast—that’s the other big issue, the room has to be able to go that fast.”

SCORING UNION OR NONUNION Virtually all of the composers who have scored more than one or two films or television projects are members of the musicians union. It is possible to score in the Los Angeles area with nonunion musicians, however, and also out of town. The factors to consider are: 1. Cost of musicians and other expenses

On the track

92

If you use union musicians you are recording with the finest, most experienced musicians in the world. This will inevitably have great impact on the budget in terms of saving money and getting the best possible performances of your scores. The musicians will cost somewhat more per hour, but they will inevitably be more efficient and faster on the scoring stage, and give you better performances overall. However, you may be able to afford more musicians if you score out of L.A. for the same budget, but only if extra expenses don’t eat up the difference and your sessions run smoothly and quickly. Dennis Dreith, chief executive officer/administrator of the Film Musicians Secondary Market Fund, elaborates. “I think there’s a perception that it’s cheaper to record nonunion in Seattle [as an example]. One has to look at the realities of that. Most of these kind of pictures that are going up there fall under the union’s low budget category. The A.F. of M. has just raised that category to $29.5 million [through February of 2003], so easily you could do a $29-million picture under the low budget rates here, and they are quite competitive. First of all, by the time you fly a crew up to Seattle, you’re going to be there for a few days so you’ve got to have hotels and food, and even a less than stellar accommodation racks up some bills. Plus there are other hidden costs up there that people aren’t always aware of. Their remote truck from Extreme Media is not cheap [as of this writing there is no fully equipped large scoring stage there]. Salt Lake does have their studio built into a church, so you don’t have to use the remote truck there. And often times you’re not going to get the kind of results you want unless you also bring your own engineer. The engineering is competent but it’s not what we’re used to in Los Angeles. So if you want to get close to the quality of the L.A., New York, and London engineers you’re going to be paying quite a bit extra for your own engineer, the sound truck and extra recording equipment, and you may even have to make sure that the selection of microphones is sufficient. “The other thing that people aren’t aware of is that people like to look at the rate per musician. But the contractor charges 10 percent of the musicians’ total cost as an additional surcharge. 10 percent is pretty hefty. So that adds a huge cost.”

Dennis Dreith.

Preliminaries

93

2. Stylistic flexibility In Los Angeles and New York you can write any style of music for virtually any of the film scoring musicians and get what you want. “I’ve never found any place else you can actually get a whole orchestra that’ll swing,” says Dreith. “You can write a swing chart for a hundred piece orchestra and everybody in the string section can actually swing. I mean, you’re not going to get that in London. You’re not going to get an orchestra that can actually sound like Duke Ellington on one cue and like Prokofiev on another.” The pace of the recording sessions would be much slower elsewhere as well. 3. Musicianship “Take brass players,” Dreith continues. “The low brass players can play lower than anything normally anybody ever writes, the high brass players can play higher than anything, you know, you’ve got people who can play legit stuff, orchestra people who sound wonderful up to a high C. Here you have guys who play the same kind of lick a third or a fourth higher.” This virtuosity means a lot. It is similar to using a high-powered amp so that everything sounds better at normal volume levels. 4. The instruments Dreith points out that the number of Guarneris and Amanis in the violin section is “staggering,” not to mention the occasional Stradivarius, so that you have literally millions of dollars worth of instruments just in the string section, and the sound reflects that. 5. Motion Picture Health and Welfare If you join the A.F. of M., use union musicians, and file your contracts with the union, you will be eligible for coverage by the industry health plan. This is comprehensive medical insurance that you will only miss when you need it most for either you or your immediate family. “People never think about that until the catastrophic moment when they don’t have it,” says Phil Ayling, studio musician and president of RMA International (the Recording Musicians Association). “In the absence of telling somebody at the union that the job’s happening and filing a contract, nobody’s going to be able to do anything on your behalf. And I think sometimes a contractor can be a help with that.” You are required to be actively working to qualify (the union has a complex method of computing eligibility for each six-month period, based on the “number of hours worked,” which, for a composer who may perform on his score and do some orchestration and/or conducting is not difficult to achieve). 6. Pension As you work (and file the appropriate contracts at your local union office) you build up

On the track

94

credit in the A.F. of M. Pension Plan, which is paid out at the age of 65 (or, by member request, as early as 62 with a slightly reduced payout). As Dreith explains it, “Basically in the first 22 to 23 months every penny that’s put in on your behalf over the years comes back to you, and it’s all gravy thereafter. There’s no investment, especially in this day and age, that can do anything like that.” This usually means nothing to a musician in his twenties or thirties, but it can be a significant contribution to a person’s security when they reach retirement age. 7. Secondary markets payments This fund, called the Film Musicians Secondary Market Fund, collects one percent of the back end earnings of all motion pic-tures produced as signatories to the basic A.F. of M. agreements (which include all the projects produced by the major studios as well as many of the independents). There are different definitions of “back end” in the motion picture and in the television clauses of the contract, but this includes various forms of home video, CDs, cable television, free television, and so on. This money is divided annually on a pro rata basis, so if you are the only person on a contract (on a self-performed score) you will receive the total amount due from that particular film. Six musicians on the contract will share equally, as will 120. The fund is very aggressive in auditing and collection. To get the greatest benefit out of the Health and Welfare, Pension, and Secondary Market plans, Dreith recommends putting down everything you do on your contract: performance of synth parts (taking advantage of the electronic multitracking rate as a performer), orchestration, conducting, and copying if you do that. What kind of money can you expect to eventually receive from the Secondary Markets Fund? “On a movie like SpiderMan,” De Crescent says, “first of all they won’t see anything on that for 2, 3 years. But I would think just the 3rd chair horn would get certainly 5 or $6,000. The first payment. Probably from the life of that film, certainly around $25,000. A smaller film like Fly Away Home? My first payment was very tiny. And it’s down now to $15. So it really very much depends on the film, but on some of the smaller films like My Cousin Vinnie, it made a huge amount of money, and there were only ten of us. And it was fantastic!”

THE ASSUMPTION AGREEMENT If the production company is not a signator to the A.F. of M. motion picture and television agreement, you should not begin any work until they sign an assumption agreement. A producer who signs this short union-provided form essentially agrees to become a signator for this one specific project and to abide by the various regulations imposed by the agreement between the motion picture producers and the A.F. of M. There are a number of nonsignatory companies, including some of the larger independents such as Miramax, New Line, TriStar, and Castle Rock. By way of example, although Castle Rock is not a signatory company, they almost always work through the union. When they sign for an individual project, it binds them to stipulated reuse

Preliminaries

95

payments for exhibition on free television and in the supplementary markets (video, cable, etc.). They are thereby agreeing to contribute to the fund one percent of their gross from these secondary markets. This is not the box office gross of the film, an area that is commonly misunderstood. As of November 2002, Spider-Man had grossed approximately $700 million worldwide, which is not in any way affected by the Secondary Markets Fund requirements. Only the production company’s grosses of product in secondary markets (DVDs or free television, for instance) are involved in this fund. Movies made for HBO and Showtime, incidentally, are not affected by the future release of home-video product, because this is considered a “primary market” for cable production. The composer interested in scoring film and television projects needs to understand the basics of this agreement in order to explain them to a producer with whom he will be working. Under no circumstances should a composer score a film without a signed assumption agreement. If he does, he will be responsible for these reuse payments if the project should go into secondary markets, which the A.F. of M. (and/or the musicians) may insist he pay. The producer will not be responsible unless he has signed the assumption agreement. All contractors and agents are deeply concerned about this matter, and urge composers to be extremely cautious about it. De Crescent usually won’t place a call for musicians without a signed assumption agreement in hand. “Sometimes I take a chance and do it, but if it becomes close to being noncancellable and I do not have a signed agreement back, I cancel the call.” Producers, incidentally, do not pay anything to the fund until 60 days after receipt of money from any of these markets. Straightforward though this is, in general Dreith sees a great reluctance on the part of composers to make a call to see how all this would work on their project. For more information, either call Dennis Dreith’s office at the Film Musicians Secondary Market Fund (818–755–7777), refer your producer to Mr. Dreith, or go to their Web site for further information (www.mpspf.org).

WORKING WITH THE CONTRACTOR The music executive and/or supervisor, and the contractor work with the composer on estimating the costs, but the starting composer working on a low-budget, independently produced project may find himself on his own, and it’s an area in which he can’t afford to be wrong. Recording with orchestras of more than a few musicians always requires a contractor, and the composer should learn as much as possible from him. There are many cases when a contractor will help the composer prepare a budget to submit to a producer before the composer gets the assignment. Contractors also can be very helpful in working with the composer to secure a signed assumption agreement from the producer. In addition to working with the composer to plan the budget, the contractor is responsible for the hiring of all the musicians (with composer approval); locating any unusual instruments or instrumentalists; keeping track of the time on all scoring sessions and monitoring the ten-minute breaks; coordinating with the music preparation staff and chief librarian; preparing and submitting the contracts to the union; doing the payroll for the musicians; and taking care of any other miscellaneous items that may arise involving

On the track

96

the recording of the music. Ayling stresses the significance of the contribution a contractor can make. “Even if you’re only hiring one [musician], I think over time, if you want to go somewhere you want to build a relationship with [a contractor] who’s going to be taking care of all that stuff for you. And I think that there are contractors out there that are willing to recognize that somebody is entry level and they’re going somewhere. I’ve seen people prepare budgets for things where there was little likelihood that it was going to be done with the size group they wanted, but I think that’s really the very best thing for someone to do.” Composers agree. As Laura Karpman says, “The contractor is a tremendous resource. They really are your friends. Something I didn’t realize at first, you know, but they want to make it work.” Budget Control Some composers simply take the word of the contractor as to the number of musicians available under the budget. However, Sandy De Crescent thinks composers should know what figures are involved. “You have no idea how many composers don’t even want to know about the costs,” says De Crescent. “I think they should be aware of what it costs so they get the most for their dollars. If they’re saying, ‘Look—I’ve got $12,000; why can’t I have this, this, and this,’ I’ll say, ‘Here’s how much the strings are going to cost you for three hours, and how many doubles do you think you’re going to have in the woodwinds?’ and I go over it with them, piece by piece. I want them to understand that I will squeeze the last dime out of that $ 12,000.” Booking Musicians, Studios, and Mixers Early Even though you may not yet have started to compose your score, you should set the recording session dates, book the studio and mixer, and contract any musicians who are vital to your score. You need to know that the most important musicians for your score, and an excellent engineer and studio, are engaged. It is always easier to release a player you don’t ultimately need than to hire a vital one who isn’t available. (A confirmed call for underscoring may be canceled with 96 or more hours notice; a call for prerecording may be canceled with a notice of 48 or more hours.) In fact, once the scoring sessions have been planned and finalized, it is not too soon to place your call for all or most of the orchestra. The musicians are booked by the contractor after detailed discussions regarding the budget, the number of musicians, the amount of music to be recorded, and the recording schedule approved by the producer or music executive. Most composers have their favorite musicians whom they ask the contractor to call. De Crescent advises composers to be open-minded, however, because their favorites may not always be available. “If a composer asks for Attila the Hun, I call him, no matter whether I think he’s working or not—that’s the fair way to do it,” she says. If the composer’s choice is not available, she will recommend musicians she knows she can rely on. But many composers are reluctant to try new people. “A lot of composers have this very tight little list, and they can’t record without these people. That’s serious because many times those people are not available. Working on the kind of schedule that I do, we can’t

Preliminaries

97

particularly change sessions around to suit players and/ or composers.” De Crescent feels it is important for composers to keep up-to-date with who’s new in town. Once, when a composer with whom she was working couldn’t get his first or second choices, he still refused to take her advice about possible musicians. “He got out a list and said, ‘I have to go with what’s familiar to me,’ and began to read me his list, and do you know that about a third of those people were dead!” Like other conscientious contractors, De Crescent is always interested in new talent. But taking a chance on them is not easy: “Someone can sound absolutely wonderful on a tape, but it really doesn’t mean that much. If someone is recommended to me, I prefer it be by someone in his own section—a rhythm player by another rhythm player, for instance. Most of the time, a new person comes to me this way.”

COMPOSING FEES There are A.F. of M. categories for orchestration and conducting but none for composition, so no minimum scale governs film composition. The union believes that creative work is not measurable with a financial yardstick and therefore fees should be set individually for each composer and project. (But composers do belong to the A.F. of M. and are governed by the union’s minimum scales for orchestration and conducting.) The creative fees cover a wide range from those paid to the top names to those paid beginning composers for whom a film assignment has an important career value regardless of the money. Fees are set in typical marketplace fashion, by negotiating individual strengths against the prevailing norm. In Hollywood in 2003, the following norms for ranges of package fee and creative fees were reported by agents and industry executives: • 30-minute TV shows: $2,500 to $6,000 package fees; non package situations are very rare in this category, but a creative fee might be from $1,000 to $3,500. • One-hour TV episode: $13,000 to $20,000 package fees, which can go higher on occasion ($30,000 to $35,000). Creative fees, although rare, might be in the range of $7,500 to $10,000 per episode. • Two-hour movies for TV: $25,000 to $50,000 for packages. When the deal involves a creative fee instead of a package, fees start at about $15,000 and go up from there. • Theatrical feature: $35,000 to $150,000 for low-budget independent film package deals; $150,000 to $800,000 packages for the middle range, independent and studio films. If the deal is for a creative fee rather than a package, the fee for a low-budget independent film might range from $3,000 to $15,000; creative fees for mid-range budgets would be $25,000 and up; and for the upper end budgets, creative fees can range from $125,000 up to $1 million or more. Because episodic television deals are primarily packages, stipulated creative fees are extremely rare; they usually include orchestration and conducting. Typically on feature films (and occasionally miniseries and television movies) the orchestration costs are paid in addition to the creative fee. In cases where there is not enough time for the composer to orchestrate, an agreement should be reached at the outset so that the orchestrator will

On the track

98

be paid by the producer, not the composer. Copying fees are universally paid separately unless the contract involves a package fee. Fees for lyrics in television are somewhat rare, because the vast majority of songs used are licensed from existing material. For original material, the range might be from $1,500 to $3,000 for a television project. Established songwriters fees for motion pictures or television might range from $5,000 to as much as $25,000 or more, depending on their status and their track record in the recording industry. Outside of Hollywood the financial arrangements may vary. If orchestration and conducting fees are paid separately, the composer can take into account the extra money he will be receiving for these services when he negotiates his creative fee (see Chapter 25 for more on negotiating the deal). Performance Royalties When a composer’s music is used on television (or radio), in a film that plays in foreign theaters, or on television in the United States or elsewhere, he will receive performance royalties for each use. Although a motion picture score exhibited theatrically in the United States receives no performance royalties from the performance rights societies ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC, every television exhibition earns a performance fee. Because there is no guarantee that a feature film (especially an independent) will be successfully distributed in foreign markets or shown on domestic television, the initial creative fee is the only compensation the composer is assured of receiving for a feature. ASCAP’s Diana Szyszkiewicz urges composers “to understand their royalties, all the potential streams of income, and not to give away their writer’s share—ever!” She also points out that it is wise to call the performing-rights organizations and make appointments to meet their membership departments. Association with a successful long-running television series can bring in significant performance royalties, but given the number of television pilots and series that do not succeed—and thus bring in no future performance fees—the composer finds himself in the position of gambling on a winner if he accepts the typically lower fees for episodic television. Agents When the composer is successful enough to be represented by an agent, more sophisticated bargaining is likely. But new composers on the scene are naive to expect to break into the business through an agent who finds work for them. In fact, agents do not add that many clients to their roster every year and are typically interested in handling only composers who already have some professional composing credits and some demand for their talents. In addition to finding projects for their established clients, the agent’s job is to negotiate contracts and deals and to follow through on the thousand-andone business details that are so important and time consuming (see Chapter 25).

BUDGET ESTIMATES

Preliminaries

99

Working up a budget is a necessary preliminary to serious composing. Budget estimating methods are not standardized, but here’s one common way of proceeding (assuming, for the moment, a union orchestra): 1. Make a list of your proposed orchestra, including any woodwind, percussion, and other doubles you may need. 2. Next to each instrument, indicate the actual number of salaries for that instrument. Think of these as salary units. For example, if you want 4 French horns, you will put the number “5,” representing 5 salary units, next to the horns because the first chair will be getting double scale. If you have a flute doubling piccolo, you would put the number “1 1/2,” indicating that the musician will be receiving 50 percent additional for one double. If that musician also will be playing alto flute, then you would put the number “1.7” next to that line, to indicate that the woodwind player is receiving 50 percent for the first double and an additional 20 percent for the second double. These doubling fees relate only to the sessions in which the musician, actually plays the extra instruments, so if he plays flute, alto flute, and piccolo for the first three-hour session (even one cue), but not the second session, he receives 1.7 salary units for the first session but only 1 salary unit for the second. If you have twelve violins for a television project, you will put the number “12 1/2” next to the violins because of scale and a half for the first violin; “13” if your budget is for a feature film. 6 violas would account for 6 1/2 salary units (scale and a half for the first chair); 4 cellos would receive a total of 5 salary units (double scale for the first chair), and the first chair double bass would receive scale and a half. Don’t forget double scale for the first chair trumpet and trombone. For the premium players in Hollywood you will need to pay the guitar double scale (2 salary units), and the harp scale and a half (1 1/2 salary units). Percussion can usually be calculated at 1.7 salary units. Add in the contractor’s scale, and the conductor’s scale (be sure to find out if your conductor requires a premium fee). If you need to hire someone to work in the booth, there is also a scale for that. These premium fees are expensive, but you are getting the best and most experienced studio players in the world, which will improve the performance and greatly facilitate the recording process. Because time is definitely equated with money when you are scoring television and motion pictures, you are getting your money’s worth and probably saving money in the long run. 3. Add up the total number of salary units and multiply by the current applicable scale for a 3-hour session (television, motion pictures, documentary, radio or television commercial). For an orchestra session with 32 musicians, the total number of salary units might be in the neighborhood of 48 to 50, once you calculate all the overscale and doubling charges. Multiply this number of salary units by the accurate union scale at the time of your session (consult your contractor or the A.F. of M. for this figure). If applicable, research the prevailing low-budget scales, which will make a huge difference in your final calculation. 4. The total that you calculated under item 3 will give you your estimate for one 3-hour session with that orchestra. Now decide how many minutes of music you expect to record in that session. If you estimate that you will be able to record 10 minutes a session, and you have a 40-minute score, then you will need 4 of these 3-hour sessions (or 2 double sessions) to complete your recording. If you need the same orchestra for all 40 minutes of

On the track

100

music, then simply multiply your total for 1 session by 4 and that is your total budget estimate for the musicians. 5. If this number is too high for the budget you will be working with, then you have several options. (a) You can make your orchestra smaller, and use the same number of musicians for all 40 minutes. (b) You can record one or more sessions with your largest orchestra and then begin reducing the number of musicians for the other sessions. This can greatly trim your budget requirements. If your largest orchestra is 32, perhaps the second 3-hour session has an orchestra of 24; and the third and fourth 3-hour sessions (probably a double session, that is, morning and afternoon of the same day), might have only 12 musicians (see “Planning Orchestra Sessions” earlier in this chapter). If you give some musicians a different call (3 1/2 hours, for instance, instead of 4), you are assured that they will be available for an additional hour beyond their call, with no premium added to their fee, but after that extra hour they are entitled to leave the session. If they agree to stay, there is a premium charge for that. With this system you might actually decide to increase the number of musicians on the first session, and then begin cutting down after that, with the end result that your budget requirements will still be much less. (c) You can discuss using studio musicians who might be willing to waive a premium fee for first chair, guitar, harp, and so on. If your contractor is experienced, describe your score to him and take his recommendations seriously as to whether this will be practical for you. (d) You can record out of town, but if you do so, be certain to include all costs, not just the musicians, in totaling your budget. And consider realistically how many minutes of music you will be able to record in a 3-hour session. This is best done through networking, finding out who else has scored under similar circumstances, and how many minutes of well-performed and engineered music they were able to record. Your budget estimate isn’t complete until you add in all the other music production expenses that apply to your budget. These include: 1. Pension (a flat percentage of each musician’s scale rate, not including premium charges; consult the union or your contractor for the current rate). 2. Health and Welfare (consult your contractor or the union for the current method of calculation). 3. Payroll taxes (consult with your contractor or a payroll services company for this calculation). 4. Cartage for cellos, double basses, harps, guitars, electric basses, keyboards and electronics, percussion ($12 for each cello and double bass, for instance). 5. Instrument rentals, which include as a rule the synthesizers brought to the session, special percussion, and other unusual instruments. 6. Orchestration. If you will be hiring someone to do orchestrations for you, the only way you can estimate this cost is to consider the nature of the score you will be composing and calculate accordingly. Will there be a lot of fast-moving action cues? Or will many of the cues be slower? Union scale is based on a 4-bar “page.” If your orchestrator is charging scale, then the size of the orchestra will also make a difference

Preliminaries

101

(consult the union for information about orchestration scale, or discuss this with your contractor. See Chapter 16 for more about the business aspects of orchestration.) 7. Copying (including MIDI transcriptions, if any). The same method of estimating orchestration will assist you with your copying estimate. If your score will be predominantly fastmoving, the copying charges will be higher because they are based on the number of pages actually copied. These are your basic expenses. If you are packaging the project, be sure to assign a certain amount of your package amount for your own creative fee. Your budget in that case is the total package fee minus your own creative fee.

TIME TO COMPOSE In 1986, for about six months, I was working seven days a week, doing eighteen-hour days. And I always knew if I dropped six hours, I’d miss it. —David Bell

Another important part of the planning is to plot the amount of music to be written versus the number of days available to write it. You must take into account your schedule near the beginning of your work process so you will know what to expect. Composers (as well as writers, directors, and actors) universally speak of the relentlessly demanding schedules, especially in television. Each composer eventually learns the average amount of quality music he can write on a daily basis and schedules accordingly. However, even when a relatively comfortable amount of time is scheduled by the production company, the shooting and editing of films almost always fall behind schedule and projects continue to be edited as the composer is writing the score. Because music is the last element in the production chain, the composer’s time gets cut short: he is often not given the fine cut (which is not locked) when promised, while the delivery date remains unchanged or in some cases may be moved forward. Accepting a television assignment will mean accepting their postproduction schedule and doing the best you can with it. Weekly television episodes are sometimes split between two composers who alternate weeks to maintain the grueling production schedules, but on packages there often is only one composer scoring a particular show. Feature films traditionally schedule more time for composing. And the more prestigious composers may sometimes have more clout in being allowed writing schedules they believe are reasonable. But they too feel pressured by circumstances that ultimately shorten those working schedules. Everyone agrees that to be a film composer you must be a fast writer and have the physical stamina to work under extreme pressure and still continue to write music for many days with inadequate sleep. Sample Schedules Most composers say that to compose an average of 2 minutes of music per day is

On the track

102

reasonable, averaging the slow days and the days with director’s conferences and phone calls with the good days when things are going well. Jerry Goldsmith usually calculates back from the start of feature-film recording. “I figure 2 minutes per day and add 10 days to that for that first period of preparation. And those weeks are 7-day weeks—if I stop and lose the momentum, I’m lost.” Many composers speak of finding themselves with as much as 10 minutes of score to write per day in extreme cases, but generally agree that they can’t do their best job if the average goes to more than 3 1/2 to 4 minutes. Whether or not they orchestrate their scores will also affect their output, but many claim that working with sequencing programs and creating mockups as they write actually increases their efficiency and speed. Although composing schedules for feature films generally are longer than for television, they are for the most part shorter than they were in the pre-1960 era, when ten weeks was normal. At this writing, five or six weeks is often planned but three or four weeks may be the realistic time after editorial delays. George S. Clinton described his workday on Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me to interviewer Rudy Koppl in Soundtrack. Clinton had only 3 1/2 weeks to score the film. “I think the biggest challenge is finding the time. I get up at 4:30 in the morning and go out to my studio. Then I have breakfast with my wife and child after they get up at 6:00 A.M. Then I go back to the studio again. At 7:00 P.M. I have dinner with my family and then go back to my studio and work till 11:00 P.M. I’ll do that for the two-and-a-half to three weeks that I have to write. That’s simply to give myself enough time for the trial-and-error aspect of creativity.” The following table shows approximate composing times from spotting sessions to the scoring stage on a variety of feature films. Even in feature films with experienced composers, there are more and more reports of last-minute changes that necessitate Time to Compose Composer

Film

Time

Elmer Bernstein

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

10 weeks

Jerry Goldsmith

The Omen (1976)

6 weeks

Charles Fox

Foul Play (1978)

6 weeks

Patrick Williams

Breaking Away (1979)

4 weeks

James Horner

Star Trek II (1982)

5 weeks

Michael Gore

Terms of Endearment (1983)

4 weeks

Arthur B.Rubinstein

WarGames (1983)

4 weeks

Craig Safan

The Last Starfighter (1984)

6 weeks

James Horner

Star Trek III (1984)

5 weeks

Alex North

Prizzi’s Honor (1985)

6 weeks

Craig Safan

Remo Williams (1985)

6 weeks

Preliminaries

103

James Horner

Aliens (1986)

3 1/2 weeks

Georges Delerue

Casanova (1986)

8 weeks

Jerry Goldsmith

Lionheart (1986)

4 weeks

Elliot Goldenthal

Interview with a Vampire (1994)

3 weeks

Danny Elfman

Mission Impossible (1996)

5 weeks

Christopher Young

The Hurricane (1999)

6 weeks

James Newton Howard

Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)

3 1/2 months

Rachel Portman

Chocolat (2000)

3 1/2 weeks

Mark Mancina

Training Day (2000)

7–9 weeks

Alan Silvestri

What Lies Beneath (2000)

7 weeks

Don Davis

Jurassic Park III (2001)

2 months

Graeme Revell

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)

6 days

composing to rough cuts, because editing continues almost to the dates of the scoring sessions. For 2-hour movies-for-TV, music executives and composers report standard schedules for composing to be 2 to 3 weeks as a rule, but these can and do sometimes end up as a 1 1/2 week push. These are tight schedules, but a fact of life. For the 12-hour television miniseries North and South (1985), Bill Conti had only 3 weeks to compose a huge 5 1/2 hours of music. There were 4 hours of underscore and 1 1/2 of source music. Under those circumstances others were brought in to handle the source, but that still left Conti with 4 hours of underscore. For one-hour television episodes, from 4 to 5 days to 7 to 8 days are normal but there are many instances of 3-day schedules for sometimes substantial amounts of music (24 to 40 minutes). And there can be last-minute director/producer decisions to underscore scenes that had not been spotted.

COPYING TIME For live sessions, time must be allotted for orchestrating and extracting the orchestra parts when the sketches are finished. If there is an orchestrator, sketches must be given to him as soon as they are ready so that his work can continue while the composer is sketching. Fortunately, copyists have developed ways to deal with the recurring time binds. Six copyists or more will simultaneously copy a last-minute score. Each may be copying a separate instrument’s part from photocopies of the score. They copy the strings, percussion, keyboards, and choral parts first, so the necessary extra copies can be duplicated, assembled, and taped while the copyists are finishing the nonduplicated parts. Planning and maintaining a schedule of composing, orchestrating, and copying is important not only to meet deadlines, but to avoid premium-time copying costs, and mistakes made from rushing and not proofreading. Such planning is timeconsuming but

On the track

104

essential. The budget and schedule will not go away; these practical matters remain on the composer’s desk until the first downbeat of the scoring session, continue throughout the recording, and sometimes beyond that moment. But if the composer is organized and thoughtful at the beginning of the project, he will be able to follow through smoothly on the practical necessities. With that in mind, he can turn his attention to an infinitely more rewarding step in the process of scoring a film—developing the concept.

Conceptualizing

105

II CONCEPTUALIZING

On the track

106

This page intentionally left blank.

Conceptualizing

107

6 DEVELOPING THE CONCEPT Over the years, I find myself spending more and more time conceptually and less and less time proportionately actually writing the cues. —David Shire

All these intellectual ideas go only so far, then you have to own up to the truth that it better have an emotional content. —Hans Zimmer

CONCEPT IS THE HEART of the score. It is the primary idea, either small or large, modest or grandiose, which functions as a foundation upon which the score is built. As such, defining and developing this focused, central idea is the first step toward creating a successful film score, and in many ways the most important. From the time a film composer begins to consider his first thematic material, he is defining his musical concept for that film. If his choices are consistent, then his score will have a concept that will give it strength and unity. If he develops the score from a clear concept it will have a consistent attitude and style, a unified approach that helps maintain the film’s dramatic integrity. Concept can often be discussed in terms of musical style. A score might be baroque, but with a contemporary rhythmsection feel, for instance. Bill Conti refers to his cues for the last fight and End Credits of Rocky (1976) as “baroque-rock.” Concept can also be expressed with instrumental color. In The Man in the Moon (1991), the mandolin, guitars, and fiddle James Newton Howard introduces when Dani (Reese Witherspoon) runs to swim in a nearby pond represents the quiet, rural nature of where she and her family and friends live, and also reflects her character (see Figure 6.13; music starts at 00:09:04 during Dani’s run into her house after church). Here are some examples of scores with strong concepts: • Ennio Morricone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1967), with its heavily reverbed ocarinas; whistling; wordless voices; and twangy electric guitar, all surprising and fresh. His score is a perfect match for the offbeat, stylized spaghetti Western for which it was designed. • The score for The Godfather (1972), which Nine Rota composed in a harmonic and melodic language suggesting Italy while at the same time retaining a powerful overview of the drama. • Johnny Mandel’s piano theme for Being There (1979), hinting at several influences,

On the track

108

including classical composer Erik Satie and the ragtime compositions of Scott Joplin, which seems to express the unusual, slightly off-the ground, gentle innocence of the gardener played by Peter Sellers. • The Elephant Man (1980) featuring John Morris’ period piece with a minor-mode carnival flavor for this story of a deformed young man in London at the turn of the nineteenth century rescued from his freak-show existence by a physician (Anthony Hopkins). • Danny Elfman’s score for Edward Scissorhands (1990), which combines gentle fantasy and off-the-wall musical choices. • In his score for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Howard Shore avoided the clichés of the thriller genre by fashioning a score that played the central character, Clarice Starling, rather than Hannibal Lecter. It is extremely intense but, like the film, is more about her than the serial killers. • The Player (1992) is about Hollywood but also about murder, romance, and deception. It’s a complicated mix of dramatic elements, for which Thomas Newman devised a score that balances this variety of tones by creating a sometimes abstract score featuring electronic and percussion instruments. The Main Title is a fine example. • Another Newman score, American Beauty (1999), uses electronics and percussion to express the tone of this film and the mind-set of its central character (Kevin Spacey). • Christopher Young uses elements of jazz and blues to get inside The Hurricane (1999), the story of wrongly imprisoned prizefighter Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. • Elements of gypsy and folk music, expressed both in a folk setting and with orchestra, are the conceptual basis for Rachel Portman’s score for Chocolat (2000).

CHARACTERIZATION How did we conceptualize the colors for Rockford Files? We looked at the character. —Mike Post

In most cases, the concept of the score will be built around the quality and nature of the central character or characters. There are other aspects of the film that the concept can successfully key in to, but more often than not these aspects will relate back to the central character(s). The Butcher Boy (1997) is a film about a maladjusted boy with a dysfunctional family. When Elliot Goldenthal was developing his concept for the film, “I put myself in the character of the boy, Francie Brady, and if he were to compose music for his own world and for his own movie, that was the way I imagined it.” This philosophy can be the basis for a very sincere and honest dramatic approach. “The musical solutions were that however that child thought of himself, whether it was in religious rapture, or whether it was in nostalgia, or whether it was reflecting an environmental situation—where he was, what he was thinking about in that place—I was very, very true to that emotion. I didn’t try to have any opinions about it. I was just composing to what I imagined he was actually

Conceptualizing

109

thinking. So if it was religious rapture, it was taken seriously and not as an editorial on my part as to what he might be. It was completely honest to him.” Mike Post tells us how Pete Carpenter and he looked at the character of Rockford for the classic television series “Rockford Files” (1974–80): “First of all, [James] Garner is southwest—Oklahoma. His accent is not real southern, but he’s definitely not East Coast or West Coast. His father was played by Noah Berry, Jr., who’s an ex-trucker. Rockford’s character is more interested in $200 a day plus expenses than he is in saving the girl or trying to be a hero. So it wasn’t heroic music. It was music that had a hand-onyour-hip, tongue-in-cheek, wry attitude to it. And I was real interested in being the first rock-and-roller to score for television. I really wanted to be the first guy to come in there and sound different. I wanted to make some sort of statement.” FIGURE 6.1 The Rockford Files

On the track

110

© 1974 Universal—On Backstreet Music, Inc. (Renewed) All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.

There’s much to be learned from Post’s comments. Post and Carpenter analyzed: 1. The central character’s regional characteristics and accent (southwest; possibly appropriate regional music). 2. His father’s personality and background (blue collar, retired working man; implication: string quartets are out—they are not ordinarily associated with blue collar—unless the director wants to create an “against-the-grain” personalized characterization). 3. The central character’s personality and motivations (he’s laid back and has simple motivations; both are qualities that could be represented musically). Through that process of analysis, they decided what the musical style wasn’t (Rockford had no heroic impulses; therefore the music shouldn’t be heroic). Then they decided what the musical style was, in terms of attitude (hand-on-hip, tongue-in-cheek, slightly wry; these are also personality characteristics that can be translated into various musical approaches). Post wanted to express all this in a new way for television. That is, he wanted to

Conceptualizing

111

characterize “Rockford Files” in a way that would sound fresh on television, by making contemporary music compatible with the personality of the chief characters and the show’s attitude. By going through this thought process and verbalizing the concept, Post and Carpenter arrived at an appropriate solution for the main theme and then orchestrated it: “We took a lot of my bluegrass background, used dobro, Minimoog, no trumpets, 2 French horns, 2 trombones, 2 bassoons, oboe, flute, and a small string section with no violins, 2 cellos, and a big rhythm section with 3 guitars (one of them a 5-string guitar finger-picked like a banjo)”—and, as a final down-home touch: harmonica (see Figure 6.1.) FIGURE 6.2 Being There (1979)

© 1995 Marilor Music (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 6.3 Chocolat (2000)

On the track

112

© 2000 by Miramax Film Music. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved.

Conceptualizing

113

On the track

114

Conceptualizing

115

THE CENTRAL CHARACTER You can’t conceptualize the central character unless you understand him. Your musical impression of that character can become the concept. At its simplest, this can be superficial, but if the character has any psychologically interesting reactions or feelings, the music can function most effectively for the film by characterizing these internal attitudes. The central character in Superman (1978)—Clark Kent/ Superman—is basically straightforward; he is the prototypical superhero. In the main theme, John Williams took a correspondingly straightforward, heroic, bigger-than-life marchlike approach. The overall quality of Being There (1979) is reflected in its central character, an innocent gardener (played by Peter Sellers) cloistered all his life, who is suddenly out on his own on the streets of Washington, D.C., after his employer dies. The gardener’s personality is just the opposite of Superman’s: shy and mild (much more so than Clark Kent), unable to relate to the real world after learning all he knows about life from television. One of the most important qualities that the Sellers character has is the ability to sound profound even while he is talking about something entirely detached from the rest of the world. Mandel’s music captures the character’s essence. The first theme can be heard at 00:06:44, fading in as the voice on television says, “Lots of animals in the barnyard.” The second theme begins at 00:08:14 just after Chance (Peter Sellers) clicks

On the track

116

the remote control and switches the television from the Seeley Posturepedic Mattress jingle to an old black-and-white film. Mandel’s music plays through Louise, the housekeeper, saying goodbye to Chance, a shot of him gardening and talking with Louise, and his return to the empty house (see Figure 6.2). In contrast, the film Patton (1970) gave Jerry Goldsmith the opportunity to personify musically a legendary military figure (portrayed by George C. Scott). “Patton was probably the most intellectual exercise that I ever put forth on a film. On that picture I felt very little demand for music. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t very much music in the picture—only 30 minutes and the picture ran almost 3 hours. I felt the picture was an antiwar picture. It wasn’t made that way but that was the point of view I took.” Goldsmith knew that Patton was a religious man as well as a military figure, so he developed a score with a march (see Figure 13.22), a chorale, and a short trumpet figure that became a signature motif for Patton and his belief in reincarnation (see Chapter 13 for more about motifs). Chocolat (2000) is the story of a woman (Vianne, played by Juliette Binoche) driven by her past to wander from town to town, who settles with her daughter in a small provincial village in France. She is a gypsy by predisposition; Rachel Portman’s music for this film comes from that aspect of her psyche, varied in presentation to suit her different moods and situations. (See Figure 6.3; this cue starts during a shot of the mayor before the cut to the exterior, as Vianne and her daughter walk into the village. The excerpt starts at 00:03:45, on the cut to an exterior shot.) Christopher Young’s score for The Hurricane (1999) keys into Rubin “The Hurricane” Carter (Denzel Washington) for its concept, a jazz and blues flavored score that frequently gets inside Carter and plays him in various situations. (See Figure 6.4; this cue starts at 01:43:19 on the cut to a C.U. of the car headlights turning on. The excerpt starts at 01:44:44 as Bellow, having entered the crime scene [in a flashback] slows to a stop, looking around.) Two Central Characters An entire group of people can become as one, representing the psyche of a single character. The basketball team in Hoosiers (1986, Jerry Goldsmith) is an example. Similarly, when Hans Zimmer began working on his score for Black Hawk Down (2001) he wanted to contrast the two opposing armed forces—the United States forces that flew into Somalia in 1993 and the Somalians. Bob Badami was his music editor and recalls, “Hans wanted to have the idea that there were these two different musical wars going on. So there was the American band and then FIGURE 6.4 The Hurricane (1999)

Conceptualizing

117

© 1999 Songs of Universal, Inc. (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

118

Conceptualizing

119

the African sound, that would either play simultaneously or alternately.” Zimmer used American rock and roll for the United States point of view, and a renowned African vocalist, Baaba Maal, for the African. “I was trying to write very much with the musicians in mind that I was working with,” says Zimmer. “So I got myself these great soloists. Because all these intellectual ideas go only so far, then you have to own up to the truth that it better have an emotional content. And I couldn’t think of a better

On the track

120

emotional content than to get Baaba Maal from Senegal and my friend Heitor Pereira from Brazil. And all I would do with him [Baaba Maal] was I’d write this European piece, actually, and then, you know, throw him in at the deep end: ‘Here, Baaba, here’s my world. Now let’s see what happens if it collides with your world. Can’t something new come out of that?’” The Unseen Central Character In The Stalking Moon (1968, Karlin), the antagonist is not seen on camera until the last reel. Until then he is an unseen presence, stalking loner Gregory Peck as he treks across the West of the 1880s with Eva Marie Saint and her half-Indian son. Peck has saved her from captivity and now the vengeful Indian chief (father of the boy) is trying to return them both to his village. He is no ordinary antagonist, though; director Robert Mulligan intended for him to be bigger than life, a mythic representation of evil, relentlessly stalking his prey. Unseen though he is, the Indian is the central character in this drama. The music had to help provide the sense of imminent danger by this unimaginably powerful, vicious force. The concept of the score included coloring the entire film with his presence. Two musical ideas were used to accomplish this. First, a subliminal, sustained stringand-woodwind chord was recorded that could play almost like a sound effect, like a chilly breeze rustling through the trees. Played softly whenever there was the sense that the Indian might be lurking just out of eyesight, just over the next hill, this sound created a quiet, cold tension that never let up for long. It often played simultaneously with cues based on other musical material, giving the impression that nothing was quite calm or safe. The second sound was a single-chord strummed sound, a combination of out-of-tune zithers distorted and manipulated electronically to create an ominous, unreal menace, derived from the more traditional sound of Western folk guitars. As if the menace grew from the Western environment itself, these single chords, written and recorded with a sense of space around them, floated across the skyline in dark contrast with the beautiful scenery and open spaces on the screen. An Inanimate Object as Central Character If a central character can be unseen, it can also be inanimate. John Williams’ score for Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) emphasizes the film’s dramatic theme, reflecting the spirituality that Roy (Richard Dreyfuss) experiences with the UFOs and the mystical attraction that the spaceship holds for him and Gillian (Melinda Dillon). In this film, the spaceship, representing the arrival of peaceful space travelers, is really the central character. The score expresses the qualities of this central character (as seen through the eyes of Roy and Gillian). This cue, illustrated by Figure 6.5, starts as the camera moves in to Roy and Gillian after their car has stopped at a roadblock. (Music begins on the DVD Collector’s Edition at 01:23:10; the excerpt at 01:23:49.) Playing Against the Character

Conceptualizing

121

Elliot Goldenthal’s concept for Cobb (1994) was to play against the central character. “I was more concerned with the concept of collision. That everything about Cobb was that he collided with people; he collided with baseball; he collided with everything he could in life. As someone once described him, he would climb a mountain just to punch out an echo. So in the music you’ll often hear aspects of music that just collide with his sense of being, of character, of who he represented. In the very beginning you hear something that is extremely rural in terms of bluesy, field chants, and that collides immediately with a symphony orchestra. That kind of thing.”

THE SINGLE DRAMATIC THEME If the musical concept evolves from the dramatic theme of the film, it becomes an overview statement; it stands back and reflects the overall attitude and thrust of the film. To explore the potential of this type of concept, ask the question, “What is this film really about?” Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Hoosiers (1986), the story of a small Indiana high school’s basketball team in 1952, has an overview concept, playing the central theme of determination and courage against all odds. A score that plays the dramatic theme as a key statement can also be specifically appropriate for the individuals and the setting. When you see Hoosiers, ask yourself if the score would have been exactly the same if the central characters had come from Chicago or Detroit instead of a small country town. If not, what changes would you suggest? (See Figure 21.8; the cue begins at 01:01:19, the excerpt at 01:01:34.) Finding the Overview An overview musical theme is one that musically sums up the emotional thrust of the film. Would the type of music you have described as being appropriate for your main character in fact be appropriate as an overview statement? The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings (2001) is part of the well-known J.R.R. Tolkien trilogy. Howard Shore created a world of sound and music for choir and orchestra that is derived from the entire story and mythology rather than an individual character. Tolkien created a credible group of characters for this drama, which Shore was able to work with in creating overview music. “You musically can only go as far as the characters the script has created in the story. That’s why Lord of the Rings is so brilliant, because the characterization that Tolkien did is so wonderful and it has such depth to it. Because you know the history of the characters. And their relationships—pages are spent on how one character has known the other and Frodo’s relationship with Sam, and Frodo’s relationship with Bilbo or Frodo’s relationship with Gandalf. Tolkien spent 14 years creating the relationships.” Building on the strength of those characters and their relationships in pursuing their mission, Shore was able to express the dramatic overview. (See Figure 6.6. The cue starts at 01:01:14 on the cut to the cavern below them at night after the campfire is out, before Frodo pulls his sword and yells, “Go!” The excerpt starts at 01:01:44 as a dark figure emerges from the shadows.) John Debney found an overview theme for The Princess Diaries (2001) that also could

On the track

122

be developed for the central character as she was groomed to become a princess. “It was all about magic FIGURE 6.5 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

© 1977, 1979, 1980 Gold Horizon Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Conceptualizing

123

FIGURE 6.6 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings (2001)

© 2001 New Line Tunes. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

124

Conceptualizing

125

and love and I had always been a lover of grand waltzes. And I did come up with the idea with [director] Garry Marshall early on that I thought it would be absolutely wonderful to write a waltz that in the beginning of the movie could just be played very simply as a waltz or not, or in four, that would bloom, and at the end of the movie there is this big ballroom dance scene and it’s a wonderful scene where it was such a joy, because, when I saw what Gary had done, there’s actually a moment where Julie Andrews and this beautiful young girl walk into the ballroom and it’s absolutely silent except for a solo piano [01:45:38], and they walk in and there’s a little orchestra in the background and the downbeat occurs.” James Horner based the concept of his score for the Civil War film Glory (1989) on a

On the track

126

theme written for a boys’ choir expressing the purity of purpose and inherent innocence of the first regiment of black soldiers to fight for the North, under the leadership of a young white officer (Matthew Broderick). Much of the score is built around that overview theme, first heard in the Main Title (see Figure 6.7). The Main Title music (with several themes) for Edward Scissorhands (1990) expresses the fairy tale/fantasy quality of this film. It is also a musical dramatization of Edward (Johnny Depp), a boy created by an eccentric inventor (Vincent Price) who lives in a gothic mansion on a hill on the outskirts of a middle-America suburb. The use of celeste and harp help bring the fantasy feeling to this cue (see Figure 6.8). Verbalizing the Dramatic Theme The dramatic theme of a film can often be characterized with a short phrase, like “good vs. evil” or “the will to survive.” Arthur B. Rubinstein saw WarGames (1983) in very dramatic terms. “I decided, as a completely removed, subjective type of theatrical thought, that what this film is about is Faust and the devil. And that was the whole concept for the score.” Did he discuss his interpretation of the film with the filmmakers? “Well, the wonderful thing was that the person who was Faust, and the one who was the devil—they switched sides; sometimes the machine was the devil, sometimes the machine was Faust, because the kid was manipulating it. So I did this whole literary, theatrical game. Now I know that if I’d gone in at any point and said to any of the producers, ‘Well, you see, what this score is about is Faust and the devil,’ they would have said, ‘Get this bum out of here. This is a picture about kids.’” Is it a picture about kids? Or about Faust and the devil? The story is about two kids who get into a lot of trouble with the FIGURE 6.7 Glory (1989)

Conceptualizing

127

© 1989 EMI Worldtrax Music, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by Permission.

On the track

128

Conceptualizing

129

government when they tap into a secret computer program that connects with an automated system for missile retaliation. Before long the jeopardy escalates worldwide. The dramatic theme is about opposing forces—call them good and evil; call them the military and the citizens; call them scientific values and humanistic values. Or call them Faust and the devil. Howard Shore wrote an entirely different kind of music to score the offbeat film Naked Lunch (1991) adapted from the William S.Burroughs novel and directed by David Cronenberg. “In this score we decided to use jazz because it just seemed part of the book. It was part of Burroughs’ world, and part of the late 1950s world of bebop. Before I started writing, a lot of research had to be done. One of the connections that I tried to find was one between Burroughs’s life in New York and in the fictional state of Interzone, which we knew was Morocco. So I kept working with the idea of North African music and bebop jazz. I knew a lot about jazz, so I started working with the Charlie Parker recordings of the late 1940s done by [Dean] Benedetti. So I was looping the Parker tracks and writing against them, but I hadn’t made any African or Moroccan connection at that time. And then I remembered a recording that Ornette [Coleman] did in the early 1970s with The Master Musicians of Jajouka in the mountains outside of Tangiers. He played with this ancient tribal group of musicians, mostly percussion and horns and flutes. I played it for Cronenberg and he thought that was the Interzone national anthem!” Single dramatic theme scores make an overview statement: They sum up the film.

TWO DRAMATIC THEMES

On the track

130

Often films have two dramatic themes, and the score can play them both. The development of one and then the other can become the concept of the score. In most cases, one of the two themes is personal, while the other often expresses an ambition of some kind, or a goal. This second dramatic theme becomes an overview of the film’s intent and thrust. Historical dramas are often constructed in this way. In a miniseries about Robert Kennedy, his personal story was set against the historical backdrop of his times. Even the title of the project clearly articulated this thematic duality: Robert Kennedy and His Times (1985, Karlin). The film was about Kennedy (and his family) on a personal level, and also about the achievementoriented, public Robert Kennedy. Here the coexisting dramatic themes are personal and epic. And each of these themes has a dramatic intent or attitude; the personal is close, warm, loving, familial, while the overview is of an intelligent, courageous man: strong, heroic, and American. A score reflecting the dramatic themes of this miniseries would capture those two groups of qualities in at least two main musical themes. Personal dramas are often approached this way as well. One dramatic theme deals with the personal development of the central character, and possibly his relationship with his family and with others; the second overview theme is about his struggle to achieve a goal, whether it is his determination to remake ancient Rome according to the wishes of its former ruler (Gladiator, 2000), save the whales (Star Trek IV, 1986), recover from a crippling accident (The Other Side of the Mountain, 1975), learn a classic blues tune (Crossroads, 1986), become a ballerina (Flashdance, 1983), or achieve expertise at karate and rebuff a bully (The Karate Kid, 1984). Sometimes a group of people are involved in these dualthemed films, but the concept remains the same. The personal story becomes several different personal stories, all with one unified ambition or goal. Chariots of Fire (1981), about the 1924 Olympics, and Fame (1980), about an entire school’s performing arts ambitions, are two good examples of this. Usually, concept scores turn out to be motivated by the central character(s) or the overall dramatic theme(s), because the other aspects of a film generally relate to these two factors.

ETHNIC/GEOGRAPHIC CONSIDERATIONS When I wonder sometimes how much the historical, ethnic, national or racial subject matter of the film should affect the treatment of scoring I think of Puccini. He may inject a certain color of a Japanese scale, a. touch of a Roman canzona here and there, but he is essentially writing his own music —Laurence Rosenthal

Many films have ethnic elements, including characters with a specific ethnic background and stories that take place in one or more countries or geographic areas. How much

Conceptualizing

131

should these factors influence the concept of the score? In each case the composer must decide whether the music should be written totally in an ethnic style, just flavored by these musical materials, or not influenced at all by these considerations. If the score does utilize these materials, should it be authentic in every detail or simply evocative of the characters or locale? These are recurring questions, and the answers depend on each film’s point of view. There are some occasions when musicological accuracy works well, but it will typically be more satisfactory to use all available musical resources to score these films, including a contemporary harmonic language when called for FIGURE 6.8 Edward Scissorhands (1990)

© 1990 Fox Film Music Corporation (BMI).

On the track

132

Conceptualizing

133

dramatically, as well as other relevant underscoring techniques to communicate the emotional thrust of the story. The necessary ethnic/geographic flavor can be evoked by adding a degree of one or more of the authentic musical elements as desired, whether these be motifs, scales, harmonies, rhythms, or instrumentation. One way to sort out the options is to rely on your analysis of the function of music in the film as a whole and in each scene to be scored. Two of the principal functions of ethnically influenced music are: (1) to suggest the film’s locale, and (2) to characterize the people in the story and to express the overall dramatic theme. Using Source Music to Suggest the Film’s Locale Films with foreign settings and characters often require source music to solidly establish the locale of the film and provide atmosphere. In Salvador (1986), when James Woods and James Belushi first arrive in Salvador, soft source-type regional music from their car radio helps set the geographic location, and there after it is used wherever possible to provide that local color. Authentic folk songs are used on the soundtrack to heighten the score’s connection with the locale. Similarly in The Black Stallion Returns (1983), the street scenes are enriched with source music to establish ethnic/geographic color, yet

On the track

134

Georges Delerue basically chose not to use these influences in his score. In Out of Africa (1985) director Sydney Pollack and John Barry deliberately avoided ethnic/geographic implications in the music. Blending Ethnic Elements into the Score There are many opportunities in film music to work with ethnic musical materials of one sort or another. The plots may take place in a specific geographic area (Black Hawk Down, Braveheart, The Mask of Zorro, Michael Collins, The Shipping News, Spy Game, Three Kings) or they may be closely associated with one or more of the central characters (Chocolat, The Hunt for Red October, Snow Falling on Cedars, Rush Hour). In some of these examples, both a central character and the ethnic location are the same, as in the case of Michael Collins, the story of

the Irish fight for independence in the early 1900s. Titanic, on the other hand, derives its ethnic flavor from one of the two central characters, Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio). Snow Falling on Cedars (1999) is a complex story revolving around a JapaneseAmerican woman and her family and an American man. Told with many flashbacks as

Conceptualizing

135

seen from both of the central characters’ points of view, James Newton Howard says, “It’s probably the least linear movie I’ve ever done.” The score blends colors and ideas associative of Japanese music with orchestra and voices. “I was just really trying to express in a noncliché way the influence of Japanese music in the score, trying to be unexpected with it and maybe not quite as predictable as it might have been.” Bill Conti used the sound of panpipes (played on the Electronic Woodwind Instrument) to add a Japanese flavor to his score for Karate Kid II (1986). The panpipes suggest, without imitation, a Japanese shakuhachi (an instrument Howard used in Snow Falling). Other orchestrational touches that add to the Japanese feeling of the score include occasional pizzicato, a synthesizer playing with “lute” and “giant koto” patches, spare use of bell trees and wind chimes, and other Karate Kid II scale

coloristic synth sounds. Harmonically, Conti often uses the characteristic Japanese minor scale (our natural minor scale, but with different intervals emphasized). Whereas traditional Japanese usage often stresses melodically the E-flat and A in this scale, Conti has created a more Western approach. An interesting example is the cue that begins after Daniel’s (Ralph Macchio’s) teacher Miyagi’s (Pat Morita’s) father dies. This long cue scores Miyagi at his father’s deathbed (this music begins at 00:42:42) and the scene that follows as the mourners placing ceremonial floating candles on the river (beginning at 00:44:09). The decision to weave ethnic or geographic flavor into the dramatic score and to what degree depends on the film and (sometimes) the filmmakers. Road to Perdition (2002) is an interesting film in this regard because the background of the central character, Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks), includes a family that originally came to the United States from Ireland. His employer, John Rooney (Paul Newman) is Irish, as is the working-class community in which this drama begins. An Irish wake is featured early in the film. “Originally [director Sam] Mendes did not want to do any Irish referencing,” Thomas Newman says. “And I remember there was a conversation during which the editor said, ‘You know, you’re wrong, I think some Irish references would be really good, particularly for the beginning of this movie.’ And interestingly, as much as we tried to continue the Irish references, they never seemed to work beyond the first fifteen or twenty minutes of the movie. Because you became ensconced in drama and less so in a kind of ethnic locale.” They all loved the Uilleann pipes version of the B section of Newman’s theme used at the beginning of the film, though. “It was just such an interesting, primal kind of sound. So we all just kind of liked it. It was one of those things where it just worked. And then when it went to the Irish wake there was some use of low whistle and high whistle. And beyond that I think Uilleann pipes turned into English horn and oboes and then it just kind of drifted into a dramatic sensibility as opposed to an ethnic one.” (See Figure 6.9, which begins at 00:02:21 after the Dream Works logo.) In the miniseries Sadat (1983), a project set largely in Egypt, Charles Bernstein

On the track

136

considered the options. “When I approached the project I realized I could have given it a completely ethnic score with only ethnic instruments and idiomatic music, or I could have gone to the other extreme, which would have been in the tradition of Hollywood film music, where there would be no more ethnicity than let’s say Verdi might use in reflecting a similarly exotic locale. When I asked producer Dan Blatt about that he said something very interesting and very helpful. The same question had come up with Lou Gossett Jr. as to what degree of accent he should use. He was trying to get his character down and wasn’t sure whether he should go overboard with some kind of Middle Eastern accent, especially to overcome his own image as a known actor. Dan’s attitude was that Lou should do it with just a touch of accent to color it—to give it a sense of the locale without caricaturing it. And that was pretty much the decision about the score: to do it in a neutral idiom and use colorations—accents. “I used the cimbalom (which is not a Middle Eastern instrument but lent a certain ethnic quality), and the dumbek and the tambourine, both of which are familiar to Western ears because they are used in Middle Eastern night club music (belly dancing, etc.), and lent that little touch of accent. I also used a liberal amount of augmented seconds in the scale, being careful not to sound hackneyed or cliché-ridden with them. And I used some very bizarre rhythms. When I was dealing with the man himself or his love relationship with his wife, I mostly stayed away from ethnic elements and went with him as a statesman, as neutrally as with any statesman—Winston Churchill, Roosevelt. I just went with the character traits—the nobility and the love and so forth.” Bernstein had a quite different ethnic decision for the 1979 television movie The House on Garibaldi Street. “The questions here were much more complex. In this film we had Israelis and Germans in Argentina in the late fifties or early sixties. But it didn’t have the flavor of the sixties. The environmental aspects were clearly Argentine, and the main characters were the Nazi Adolph Eichmann, and the head of Israeli intelligence who is leading this particular expedition to track him down and bring him back for trial. So there are three rather disparate musical vocabularies: the modern state of Israel, European characters who are Israeli citizens, and Eichmann as a certain aspect of Germany at this time, all set in a South American milieu. “I was baffled at first, and I had six days to write the score—to plow into Garibaldi Street with a very, very tight budget. And yet it turned out to be one of the most satisfying experiences I’ve had in television. “I didn’t treat it anything like the way I treated Sadat. I superseded the issue rather than solved it. There was an overriding issue, which was the pursuit and entrapment of a war criminal. At the beginning of the picture we don’t have that element. I asked myself, ‘What kinds of scenes have music in them?’ There was, for instance, a long monologue in which one of the characters is describing graphically how Eichmann had cruelly murdered a baby. And the music under that had to evoke the Nazi era from the point of view of the victim. That narrowed me down for that particular cue. There was another very dramatic cue where they actually abduct him and I had to create there not only the standard suspense devices, but also, when they abduct him I wrote into the woodwind parts different rhythms and different pitches of the sound that sirens make in Europe (the kind used in The Diary of Anne Frank) to evoke wartime Europe, to bring us back to that.

Conceptualizing

137

So he was being abducted to the very sounds which struck fear into the people whom in fact he had abducted—and it created more of an emotional history of that moment. So I found that as I went through the cues, many of the scenes in fact were not rooted in Argentina or Israel, but were memories of where the initial issues and crimes had taken place. Some Argentinean tangos did come into it—in scenes in cafes where you could see somebody playing piano.” Research Research will help you to discover the stylistic characteristics that suggest being in Russia, or China, or 100 B.C. in Rome. Composers dig out this information from recordings, libraries, ethnomusicologists, and foreign musicians when they are available to answer questions. Quasi-authenticity It is a common experience these days to visit Japan, Hong Kong, and other faraway places, hoping to hear some exotic national music, only to end up hearing no native music at all—only American records of pop hits, or watered down imitations of them by regional musicians. When the composer sets out to do FIGURE 6.9 Road to Perdition (2002)

On the track

138

© 2002 Songs Of SKG (BMI). Worldwide Rights for Songs of SKG Administered by Cherry River Music Co. International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved. research on national and regional music, he can often find nothing current that would evoke the deeper associations of that country. You must know what the authentic sound is for each ethnic or historical project, but you can’t necessarily count on that sound to be perceived as authentic by the audience. Gerald Fried, who has scored many National Geographic documentaries with international settings, did one set in Hong Kong. To capture the ethnicity of the film he chose not to use exotic Chinese instruments, other than characteristic gongs, temple blocks, and such. His experience applies to all composers attempting to use authentic ethnic music. “I did research, and it turns out that the genuine music of Hong Kong is such an embarrassing imitation of Western sounds that I had to write my own ‘authentic’ music. This happens time and time again. And rather than use Chinese instruments, we

Conceptualizing

139

imitated them. I’ve had such bad luck in the past. I used to get Hungarians to play cimbaloms, for example. After the first twelve hours on a cue that could have been done by a skilled studio musician in one take, I got smart. I let the studio guitarist adjust his banjo to make it sound like a samisen, and so forth. “I did a documentary on Tahiti and that was even worse. Tahitian music is like Martin Denny on a drunk night. [As a rule] to be convincing I take out some of the Western influence, and go for what I think is right. I’ve often done Library of Congress research, and there are authentic sounds. I just incorporate those as much as possible into what today’s actual music of Tahiti or Hong Kong is.” In his score for the 1975 television movie I Will Fight No More Forever, the story of Chief Joseph of the Plains Indians, who spoke the title line when he was finally defeated by the entire U.S. Army, Fried found that, “Once again, the real authentic music of these particular Indians was so primitive, it would have sounded like I was mocking them. The drum just goes bomk, bomk, bomk, on some kind of flabby drum that sounded like a piece of parchment. The pentatonic scale of these Indians sounded so Asian that I wouldn’t dare use it.” Recording with Ethnic Musicians It’s expensive to record with authentic ethnic musicians who don’t have the efficiency and experience of studio musicians, but when time and money are available to work out exotic effects with these musicians, the results can be striking. In Remo Williams (1985) composer Craig Safan worked with traditional Korean musicians, but they played their authentic instruments within a contemporary setting. “Everything was done to click [track] because it was the only way I felt we could sync up all these elements. First I recorded all the Synclavier tracks for all the cues (playing them myself). They were actually all preprogrammed and I just unloaded them in the studio. For cues without Synclavier parts I just laid down a click track. “Then I brought in the Korean instruments and players. They had never done overdubbing and it was a tremendous amount of work. If you write a crescendo they can’t stay with the click because they speed up. When I said, ‘Wait a minute—you’re speeding up,’ they would say, ‘We always speed up when we play louder in our music.’ I said, ‘Well, you can’t do that here!’ I spent two days conducting sitting on the floor with them trying to hold them in [tempo].” Christopher Young wrote for an Indian instrument called a sanayi (shan-nai) for a cue in Entrapment (1999). It wasn’t easy to find the right musician. “We tried a couple of legit reed players who could play something that sounded like the sanayi, and [director] Jon Amiel just said, ‘No, I won’t accept it.’ Finally he said to the contractor, ‘I can’t believe that in all of London there’s not someone here who plays the sanayi.’ So there was this one guy who does all of these sessions, and we had to hunt him down. It was one thirty-second cue, but he was wonderful.” (See 00:58:55 for his cue as they enter Kuala Lampur.) For his score for Gladiator (1999), Hans Zimmer felt it was vital to use the sound of a specific master of the duduk, Djivan Gasparyan, who lives in Armenia. (Gasparyan also played duduk on Jerry Goldsmith’s score for The Russia House [1990].) The duduk is an

On the track

140

Armenian single reed instrument predating the Middle Ages, tuned to a diatonic scale. Chromatics are executed with various half-fingerings. Zimmer recalls, “I said, ‘I’m going to write for him.’ And everybody kept saying, ‘You’re crazy, he lives in Armenia. You’re going to go schlepp all the way to Armenia?’ And I’m going, ‘Whatever it takes, I’m just going to write for him.’ And one day I get a phone call and he’s going to be in Los Angeles. If you build it he will come. You know? And there was nothing stopping me from writing for Djivan. And he doesn’t speak a word of English and I don’t speak a word of Armenian. That’s the beauty of our jobs. We can get together and we can’t speak the words, but we have that other secret language, you know?” Using Authentic Music Laurence Rosenthal felt that there were two authentic Russian musical elements that should be represented in his score for the miniseries Peter the Great (1986). “One of them was the whole element of folk music, because one felt very much the presence of the people. And Peter himself, in spite of his Westernization, was a democrat, strangely enough. And then there was the magnificent liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church. I incorporated both of those elements into the score. Just about all of the choral excerpts in the score are directly from the liturgy. I felt that they were inimitable. In the case of the folk songs it is a mixture. I used about three folk songs which particularly struck me, although one or two I rewrote a bit. There is a very good tradition for that—everybody from Brahms to Stravinsky has rewritten folk material. But there the quality of the melodies was so wonderful that I couldn’t resist it. I did actually compose much of the folklike material throughout the score.

Conceptualizing

141

Laurence Rosenthal “As far as the affect of these folk music melodies on the harmonic language of the score, it is a funny thing that when you start dealing with the church music and with the folk music you find that you are drawing on the same sources that Mussorgsky, Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and many other Russian composers drew on and inevitably it seems as though you are starting to sound like them, when actually you are all sounding like the original sources. But in the battle sequences I would be more universal. I invented a kind of Swedish theme which was a rather clean-cut Scandinavian kind of thing.” (See Figure 6.10.) Avoiding Ethnic References There are times when the composer gets a negative directive: Don’t acknowledge the ethnic background of the characters. When John Cacavas was scoring the 1980 television miniseries The Gangster Chronicles the producer did not want anything really ethnic— such as playing it like The Godfather. “They were afraid of lashback from Italian organizations. So we had no mandolins, and so forth. It was treated more symphonically. On the other hand he wanted that touch of minor—the kind of thing that would be indicative of what people would expect.”

MUSICAL STYLES Established musical styles, whether pop, rock, jazz, or classical, are often the foundation for a concept. If the concept is based on one distinct musical style, its purest execution is to be perfectly faithful to that style throughout the score, never changing its musical language or composing outside its musical boundaries. Dave Grusin used the musical styles of twentieth-century FIGURE 6.10 Peter the Great (1996)

On the track

142

© 1986 Dejamus California, Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission. French composers Francis Poulenc and Darius Milhaud for his concept for My Bodyguard (1980). Regardless of the scene, Grusin is very true to this style throughout the film, always working with the styles of Poulenc and Milhaud to underscore the drama. In his score for Deathtrap (1982), Johnny Mandel used primarily orchestra plus two harpsichords. Michael Caine plays a has-been playwright preoccupied with antique torture instruments and weapons, all used in his previous murder mysteries. These weapons become very central to the story, as a collective inanimate central character. “I decided to limit the score to Bach or before. I really tried to set that limit of not going past the eighteenth century.” Mandel admits to getting “a little Wagnerian” at times, but only out of absolute dramatic necessity. “There was one scene when the Dyan Cannon character is tipsy, sitting on the couch, and I start off with a flute duet and then go into a piano thing. And she’s giggling and Michael Caine consoles her, telling her she had nothing to do with Christopher

Conceptualizing

143

FIGURE 6.11 The American President (1995)

© 1995 Hazen Music & Universal-MCA Music publishing rights in the United States administered by WB Music Corp. and elsewhere throughout the world by Universal-MCA Music Publishing, A Division of Universal Studios, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

144

Reeve’s death. And they’re going up the stairs and they’re getting pretty spaced out by then. He’s leading her up to the bedroom and I got out of the piano and went to a Fender Rhodes at that point, into a deep chorus, and broke the style there. And still, it grew out of the style. There’s nothing there that Bach hadn’t done at one time or another.” (This cue begins at 00:55:43.) Here are some examples of musical styles that have been used as the concept of a score: Americana Music that suggests Americana is prevalent in the Western genre (including the classic scores for The Big Country [1958] by Jerome Moross and Elmer Bernstein’s The

Conceptualizing

145

Magnificent Seven [1960]), but films outside the genre can be appropriate for this style, orchestrated symphonically, with folk instruments, or both. The American President (1995, Marc Shaiman). You can hear this sound on the Main Title, with its American icons—an eagle, American flag, old books, and images of many presidents. Set in a major diatonic tonality, Shaiman establishes a tone distinctly American, political, and romantic, the three basic elements of this film (see Figure 6.11). Classical Beethoven’s 2nd (1993, Randy Edelman). Given the title (the name of the dog is Beethoven) and the lighthearted spirit of this film, using “classical” style is a natural fit and plays the comedy well. The Princess Diaries (2001, John Debney). There are many moments in Debney’s score that are classical in style. The concept comes from the central character’s journey in becoming a princess. Folk Chocolat (2000, Rachel Portman). At times Portman uses a small group of folk instruments (violin lead, accordion, acoustic guitars, shaker, panpipes, wooden flute, and also clarinet) to give authentic flavor to her folk theme. One example is the cue beginning at 00:10:39 after the mayor says, “Yes, she’s enjoying it very much—Venice.” (See Figure 6.12, which begins at 00:11:03 as she decorates her new shop.) Note that the party preparation cue has the same feel, with a different solo violin theme. The Man in the Moon (1991, James Newton Howard). Howard uses American folk instruments at times (mandolin, guitar, fiddle) to suggest rural Americana. You can hear this as Dani (Reese Witherspoon) runs to the swimming hole at 00:09:04 (see Figure 6.13), at 00:22:22 as Court starts his truck and he and Dani drive to town, and as Court gives Dani her first kiss at 00:54:29. The Milagro Beanfield War (1988, Dave Grusin). Grusin uses FIGURE 6.12 Chocolat (2000)

On the track

146

© 2000 by Miramax Film Music. All Rights Administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved.

Conceptualizing

147

Latino folk music to connect with the central characters in this drama about a war for water in New Mexico. His score is a very ingenious, and his flavorful use of these materials is carefully integrated with the violin playing of a mystical fiddler. Jazz and Blues Classic film scores that use this idiom include the groundbreaking scores by Alex North for A Streetcar Named Desire (1954), Elmer Bernstein for The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and Johnny Mandel for I Want to Live! (1958). The Hurricane (2000, Christopher Young). The concept of this score is based on the jazz/blues idiom, expressing the soul of the central character. Authenticity is the key; the use of the idiom is generally not complex, the lines are straight out of the jazz vocabulary, and everything rings true. Many dramatic sequences are scored in this manner (see Figures 6.4 and 21.9). Payback (2000, Chris Boardman). Boardman uses a lot of rhythm grooves for this

On the track

148

drama with Mel Gibson, and much of it relates in some way to jazz. This is especially effective in the Main Title music, which you can hear also during the scene in which Gibson breaks out of a car trunk (the sax line enters at 01:33:54). (See Figure 21.11; this excerpt begins during the Main Title on the cut to street at 00:03:4, after the diner scene.) The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974, David Shire). Shire uses big band jazz based on a twelve-tone row in this film about the highjacking of a New York City subway train (see Figure 14.18).

Minimalism There are scores now that use elements of minimalism, and some devices useful in that style, such as ostinatos and pedal point, have been standard film scoring techniques for decades. The Green Mile (1999, Thomas Newman). Newman makes good use of these techniques in many of his scores, including American Beauty (1999) and Pay It Forward (2000). The cue at 01:08:38 in The Green Mile is an example, starting after Paul (Tom

Conceptualizing

149

Hanks) phones in sick; the cue scores his drive to see a lawyer (Gary Sinese); see Figure 6.14. Rock Rock Star (2000, Trevor Rabin). Loaded with songs, many performed on screen, Rabin’s job was to compose music for this film that would be compatible with the songs and characters, and to successfully score the drama in a way that would be credible without sounding out of place. The cue at 01:11:50 as Chris (Mark Wahlberg) talks to Emily (Jennifer Aniston) about her business deal in Seattle is a good example (see Figure 21.4).

COMBINING TWO OR MORE STYLISTIC ELEMENTS One of the unique features of film music is the blending of several stylistic musical styles or elements to create a composite, sometimes even fresh recipe of musical ingredients. The possible variations are limitless. A little hint of country music can flavor a score. Ten percent more country gives a slightly different emFIGURE 6.13 The Man in the Moon (1991)

On the track

150

© 1991 Pathe Entertainment Moviesongs (BMI) phasis to the score; leaning more heavily on an element of circus music shifts the sound in that direction. There may not be a single commonly used musical label that accurately describes the composite musical idiom you have created. This may be true of scores with a strong concept; Star Wars (1977) has a score with a strong and consistent concept, yet the concept is symphonic and orchestral, and not difficult to characterize. In his score for The Elephant Man (1980), John Morris derived his concept from the central (title) character, a severely deformed young man who had been exhibited in freak shows and carnivals all his life. So the flavor and color of carnival music was an extremely relevant sound (simple waltzes played on mechanical instruments, organ grinders, and steam calliopes). The location of his story, turn-of-the-twentieth century London, was also important, because the contemporary reaction of the medical world and public to his deformity was part of the drama. In a different time and place, perhaps he would not have been treated as he was. As Morris describes it, “Elephant Man is about a carnival performer. That was the ostinato which was on top of the Main Title, which is like an old-fashioned carnival. The tune itself, though, I thought, should be something that was in his mind from childhood. And that’s really it. So it’s combining a tune that he would remember from his childhood

Conceptualizing

151

with a little overtone of the carnival.” In retrospect, his explanation makes the solution seem inevitable. This concept still comes from the central character, but deep inside him. To get inside the central character, Morris added colors that suggested period, place, and a sense of the musical style of a carnival. He blended these elements together to create the main theme, heard first in his Main Title music (see Figure 6.15). Howard Shore had heard a 1973 recording of jazz saxophonFIGURE 6.14 The Green Mile (1999)

© 1999 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. and Universal & Songs of PolyGram International, Inc. (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission. ist Ornette Coleman performing with The Master Musicians of Jajouka, but not until he was asked to score The Cell (2000) did it occur to him that they would be just the right musical element to combine with the London Philharmonic. “I wanted it to be an African score, meaning I didn’t want to write it in a Western context. The music was not created in a purely European sense. I tried to create something that had tonality and rhythms to it, that were not stripped bar by bar, rhythmic meter, everything matching—the kind of sound that we’re so used to with symphony orchestras. I used a lot of modern techniques.

On the track

152

“I wrote the score in a non-Western way, I actually notated it in a very specific way to make the symphony orchestra sound African, so that the ninety players of the philharmonic would play as if they were playing in an orchestra like The Master Musicians of Jajouka.” (See Figure 6.16, which is a page from Shore’s score.) In The Power of One (1992), a story about apartheid, Hans Zimmer went to South Africa to record stylistically authentic voices singing his music. “I wrote strictly as a European and then took it down to Africa to see what happens when we collide. You know, as opposed to being musical anthropologists and learn what they do and then basically just get stuck with the clichés.” The mixture of musical styles and attitudes can have a great bearing on the ultimate effect of the score. Some of the most memorable and refreshingly ingenious film scores use interesting combinations of several musical ingredients.

THE PROCESS OF ELIMINATION For any film, it’s like a Chinese menu. I decide what I don’t want. —John Morris

What I wasn’t going to do was try to sound like a hiphop artist. —Mark Mancina

You can start searching for the right music by eliminating certain musical ideas that you don’t want in your score. For example, FIGURE 6.15 Elephant Man (1980)

Conceptualizing

153

© 1980 Brooksfilms Limited. All rights reserved. when Mark Mancina was working on his score for Training Day (2001), neither he nor the director, Antoine Fuqua, wanted to fall into the trap of using any kind of hip-hop style for the score. “Every time I see an urban movie with a composer with my background,” says Mancina, “classical training and that sort of thing, the score sounds ridiculous because it just sounds like somebody trying to do hip-hop that knows nothing about it or doesn’t even like it.” Having eliminated that approach, the choices became more obvious to him. “Los Angeles is not one type of music. It’s everything. You can drive through those neighborhoods and a lot of those guys are listening to The Doors. You would never think that. Los Angeles is like New York. It’s so multicultural that to call Los Angeles black or Latino or whatever is inaccurate. It’s so many cultures. And so, what I wanted to do with the music was make a very, very ethereal, dreamy, very multicultural score.” The television miniseries Sadat (1983) dramatized the political and private life of the great Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat, and many of Charles Bernstein’s major decisions about style were “avoidance issues.” He explains: “If much of the film takes place in the fifties, I’ll avoid a harmony that I associate with a later period. In my score for Sadat, when I felt myself leaning in directions that, on an intuitive level, violated the time and place, I just nixed it. And took a left turn or a right turn.”

On the track

154

These basic decisions can usually be made before you even begin to compose, and they in turn affect the rest of your score. When Laurence Rosenthal was searching for the right quality for the television movie Who Will Love My Children? (1983), he reacted emotionally to the film’s profoundly moving story. It is the story of a woman who has ten children and a sweet, kind, but alcoholic husband; they live just barely above the poverty line in rural America. Then the woman discovers she has cancer. FIGURE 6.16 The Cell (2000)

Conceptualizing

155

© 2000 New Line Tunes (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Used by permission. The film tells how she explains this to her children, and how she tries to find homes for all of them. “And it was so bone simple,” says Rosenthal. “I mean there was nothing fancy or sophisticated about the children, and certainly not the woman. I felt that this had to be a melody of great simplicity, as it were, right from the heart—sort of C major simplicity. But at the same time, just with a tiny, tiny little echo of contemporary sound, of a kind of contemporary folk song” (see Figure 6.17).

On the track

156

This process of elimination can lead to both positive and negative choices—you want this, you don’t want that—and every time you make another choice, you narrow down the possibilities a bit more, bringing you that much closer to the core of your concept.

SCORES FOR STUDY The reader is urged to study on DVD or videocassette the illustrations cited in this chapter, some of which are listed below, as well as these further examples of the principles discussed. All timings cited are those on the DVD (when released on that medium). The first number indicates the lapsed time in hours, the second the minutes, and the third seconds. Approximate timings are included for films only available on videocassette as of this writing, and are so indicated. Ethnic/Geographic Considerations Braveheart (1995, James Horner). The historical drama about William Wallace, the thirteenth-century Scot who led his people FIGURE 6.17 Who Will Love My Children? (1983)

Conceptualizing

157

© 1983. Reproduced by permission of American Broadcasting Music, Inc. in rebellion against the tyrannical English king Edward. There are many uses of Celtic instruments and modal harmony throughout this score, which suggest both the geographical setting and the central character in this film, including: • The Main Title. (See Figures 13.20, 13.21, and 14.7.) • 00:14:30, scored with Uilleann pipes. • 00:29:27 as Murron reaches for Wallace (Mel Gibson) to pull her up on his horse, with pennywhistle and percussion, and then pipes followed by a wooden flute. • 02:17:00, as Wallace runs to the mountain top, scored with a few ethnic instruments. • 02:49:00 on the DVD, as the armies prepare to attack. Black Hawk Down (2001, Hans Zimmer). For this docudrama about an ill-fated United

On the track

158

States mission to Somalia, Zimmer used the authentic vocalizing of the renowned Babaa Maal. His solos were recorded separately and then used as desired throughout the score, as were various ethnic instruments, all used to contrast the forces in Somalia with the U.S. soldiers. The use of his voice include: • The opening cue. • After 00:21:00, in the market, with ethnic instruments and voice, and then into a soft pad. The Cell (2000, Howard Shore). Shore uses the Master Musicians of Jajouka and the London Philharmonic. You can hear these two elements near the beginning of the film (see Figure 6.16). Chocolat (2000, Rachel Portman). Portman characterizes her central character with references to gypsy music through the use of characteristic scales, harmonies, and colors. The licensed jazz pieces are by Django Reinhardt, a famous gypsy-flavored jazz guitarist, which further strengthens her concept. The cues at 00:10:00 and 01:14:00 are representative of this concept (see Figures 6.3 and 6.12). The Insider (1999, Pieter Bourke and Lisa Gerrard). Refer to the opening sequence as Bergman (Al Pacino) is driven to a meeting blindfolded. The percussion plus voice functions as a geographic/ethnic coloration while also emphasizing the tension of being in a dangerous situation in a foreign country. Paulie (1998, John Debney). Debney wrote a Russianflavored theme for the janitor (Tony Shalhoub) who befriends Paulie, a talking parrot with human intelligence and emotions. The Peacemaker (1997, Hans Zimmer). There are geographic and ethnic (Russian) suggestions in this action film score about a nuclear explosion in Russia. See the use of a soft cymbalom for the scene at 00:36:28 (Sarajevo, Bosnia), which then becomes part of the scene and score as it develops. Snow Falling on Cedars (1999, James Newton Howard). Howard smoothly integrates into his score ethnic materials suggesting the Japanese family and their culture. There are shakuhachi solos, string solos, and the sensitive use of percussion and electronics. (See Figures 14.34 and 20.2.) Three Kings (1999, Carter Burwell). An action film about four American soldiers who try to steal gold in Kuwait after the Persian Gulf War. There is an ethnic action cue at approximately 00:45:00.

Conceptualizing

159

This page intentionally left blank.

On the track

160

7 DEMONSTRATING THE SCORE: MOCKUPS AND ELECTRONICS You know a cue is working in a simple visceral way, that it’s either there or it’s not. —Rod Lurie, Director

DEMONSTRATING THE THEMES AND in most cases the entire score is almost always done by the composer through the creation of electronic mockups sometimes supplemented (or replaced) by live instruments. The demonstration meetings usually take place at his home (or studio away from home). In the days before electronic mockups were available, many composers were concerned about playing the score on the piano for the producer or director. They felt that the filmmakers could never really understand their intentions just from the piano; that if you said, “This high line is flute, the strings are going to do this,” the producer and director would not be able to imagine the orchestrated music and might dismiss cues or whole scores out of hand. Composers felt vulnerable. Their score might be compromised, and because they couldn’t accurately demonstrate what it would really sound like, they worried about losing a beautiful cue that the producer and director might love if they heard it orchestrated and played with the film. There are very few composers who will use a piano now to demonstrate their score. John Williams, an excellent pianist, is a notable exception, because he is able to give a good indication of the score through his performance at the keyboard. “He’ll play the theme for Steven [Spielberg],” says his music editor, Ken Wannberg. “Steven loves that process. George [Lucas] not so much, because he writes here and George is up there.” Anne Dudley played some of her American History X (1998) themes on a keyboard without any mockups or electronics to show director Tony Kaye what she was doing. For a long time after electronic mockups became prevalent, Christopher Young was still offering his score demonstrations at the piano. The Hurricane (1999) was the first time he used electronics to demonstrate. “I used to have the directors come in and they’d sit around the piano. Now, I’m not a good pianist by any stretch of the imagination. I could never even play a cue of mine from beginning to end in its entirety without making mistakes. But what I was able to do, and still directors I’ve worked with before joke about this, is that, through the aid of my mouth and being very aggressive and dramatic in my presentation, I’m sure that they had it in their head. They could see that the score was alive in my head and so in my enthusiasm about it, and me mouthing the parts of the brass or the percussion, they go, ‘I got this, I think I got this! Oh, wow, this is going to be cool.’ So I was a showman. It’s a unique way of bluffing your way through.”

Conceptualizing

161

With the director’s approval, electronic mockups might not be necessary, although most composers find they now create and sketch their scores electronically anyway. Everyone standing around the piano while the composer runs through his cues rarely happens anymore and is difficult to imagine if you haven’t been there. “I marvel at the relationship that must have existed before this technology was possible,” says Graeme Revell. “To have that confidence in each other, it must have been a wonderful time.” Without question, sophisticated mockups enable composers to present relatively clear realizations of what their score will actually sound like. This can stimulate a great deal of very specific dialogue about the composer’s choices. With a very few exceptions, filmmakers expect composers to present their score to them cue by cue in the form of well-executed mockups, and to work with them to refine (or revise) their music to suit the filmmakers’ expectations and wishes. This ongoing work process spans the entire composing phase of the project, sometimes beginning prior to the composer receiving footage, sometimes prior to spotting, but virtually always from the days after spotting right up to (and sometimes past) the first downbeat on the scoring stage.

ELECTRONIC MOCKUPS Mockups work for me because they’re wholly a part of the writing process. I create demos of all my cues for the director in a very elaborate way. —Harry Gregson-Williams

Sketching by Hand or Electronically? Electronic sketching provides ease and speed to the composition process and the added specificity of the demonstrations for the filmmakers. James Newton Howard explains how practical and frequently necessary working this way can be. He had five weeks to compose his score for Vertical Limit (2000). “My mockup for Vertical Limit was very labor intensive and exhausting. Here are the options: you can either be exhausted from creating the demo and sequencing and basically orchestrating the movie, or pick up a pencil and spend four weeks sketching, which was mind numbingly difficult and time-consuming. So at this stage I would prefer to do the demo process. I’m very fast at it. It allows me a lot more time to compose and I don’t have to sit and be sketching, which I used to do for weeks at a time. How could I sketch this score for weeks at a time when I only have five weeks from inception to completion? It’s impossible for me and I’m speaking from my own experience. I’m proud of the fact that I’ve temped, with my demos, the biggest action scores, as big as anybody’s ever done. The Fugitive, Vertical Limit, and many of my other films have been previewed with my demos in there very, very successfully. That’s a lot to ask from a demo because they can often sound cheesy, and mine have from time to time, but I try to avoid it.”

On the track

162

How They Are Created In order to get the most convincing sound, composers use various techniques on their sequences, including a lot of doubling and layering of individual parts (especially strings and brass). On complex cues this can amount to a huge amount of individual tracks— sometimes hundreds. Howard works with an assistant, Jim-Hill, who produces the electronic score, loading and unloading samplers, and also engineers, but Hill doesn’t do any of the labor-intensive musical aspects: performing, sequencing, and sound design. John Debney suggests another time-saving technique. He does what he can to present a well-executed demo, but he waits for the director to sign off on each cue before sending it off to his assistants. They polish the mockups for scoring. “I will fully demo out a cue and I will even put in whatever loops or a little bit of a techno or a retro groove thing— like, in Cats & Dogs I did a lot of retro “Peter Gunn” meets Chemical Brothers, stuff like that—and I will have all the parts in. And I’ll just MP3 them the demo with the MIDI file, and then they will come in and replace a lot of my sounds. Same parts, just updating the sounds, and finessing and making them really, really cool and hip, and I love that. It’s sort of a whole process, I always get a kick out of getting the cue back and hearing what’s there. “Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time they are working with the more contemporary and synthetic elements. For instance, the bass line. I’ll put in my little synth bass line and then they’ll come in and they do all the filtering and all the really cool stuff that I love that I’m not as adept at yet. So that’s the way we work.” Then, as they get close to the recording sessions, they break off stereo stems as desired. These then become final reference tracks for the scoring stage, and some may well be final prerecorded tracks to be used in the final mix. Waiting for final directorial approval before going through these steps saves everyone time and money by avoiding great amounts of revising, but subsequent changes in the film may still necessitate further revision. Mark Mancina uses hard-drive recording to be able to sketch with live instruments. “The quality of digital audio now has changed the way I write. Because I’m not sitting at a piano with a MIDI computer now trying to figure out the score. I’m now able to watch a scene and start to record live acoustic instruments and create from that end, which to me, for some reason, is a much more organic approach to music in general, and I enjoy it much more.” Young does not yet create his scores on a computer. He works at the piano for scores that are not electronically conceived, and

Conceptualizing

163

Christopher Young. gathers sounds for those that are. “Mockups are a two-edged sword, because I don’t write at a synthesizer. That’s not the way my cues are brought to life. I turn my sketch over to my assistant, and you know how it is if you’ve got it locked in your head and you’ve got an aural image of what it’s going to sound like. Unfortunately with me, I go down and I listen to these mockups and the first thing that happens to me is I start to panic. And I get real hyper about wanting to sound as bloody close to the orchestra as it possibly can. And I figure if it ain’t working for me, how the hell is it going to work for the director? “I do find it helpful, of course, but I’ve often found that cues that I think would work really well on the stage have been dropped because of poor mockups. It depends upon who your director is. Some of them really like to hear it just the way it’s going to sound and it’s really hard for them.” What happens to his handwritten pencil sketches once they go to his assistant, Jonathan Price? If there are live instruments, they try to bring them in a few days before the director comes by, and Price records them at Young’s studio. String overdubs are handled by two GigaStudios and Digital Performer. It is important to have these mockups sounding as convincing as possible for demonstration presentations. “In the case of woodwinds, if there are a lot of really dense runs, a lot of times no matter how you finesse it, it’s just not going to sound as nice on a synthesizer. So sometimes we’ll drop those or if the director needs to hear it and it sounds like bad organ or something like that, we’ll use a piano patch, which at least sounds closer to what the actual instrument is.” Composer Christophe Beck expresses a similar concern. “You can’t write for the orchestra and then mock it up. You really have to write for the limitations of the sounds you have.” He points out that as the sounds continue to improve, there are fewer limitations, but they still do exist. “There are certain kinds of passages that simply don’t work. And there are certain kinds of instruments that have not been sampled particularly well yet. You’ll hear very few trumpets of any kind in ‘Buffy [the Vampire Slayer’] scores.” Price and Young can perfect a mockup within a day. “Things tend to bottleneck toward the end of the week, and we usually pull an all-nighter to get everything done by the time the director

On the track

164

Christophe Beck. gets there,” says Price. Hasheo Nakanishi comes in and takes over at night when they get particularly pressed for time. Making Them Convincingly Real When the goal is to approximate the sound of a full orchestra, Beck’s advice is very important to keep in mind. Even if you are going to be using the mockups on the final soundtrack, you will want to avoid the weaknesses in your sound library and play to its strengths. If the horn samples and electronic horn sounds are strong and convincing (even if they don’t all sound quite like French horns) and your trumpet or trombone library is not that strong, it would be wise to use the horns as a replacement or supplement for those weaker brass instruments. Beck also advises you to be relaxed about using instruments outside their register if the overall effect is good. If you end up orchestrating an out-of-register line, you’ll have to adjust accordingly. And, like most experienced synthesists, he suggests playing your parts into the sequencer one by one (Violin A, Violin B, Violas, 1st trumpet, 2nd trumpet, and so on) rather than simply grabbing a full chord with your right hand and playing the entire trumpet section in one pass. For the strings, use different samples or groups of samples for the violins, violas, and celli; this brings more individuality to the sounds in your sampled orchestra. Beck’s technique for bringing life to his performances depends greatly on inserting expression into the music. “When mocking up any sustained sound, my right hand is playing the line and my left hand is on the volume slider. And that’s where I get my phrasing. In fact, it’s so second nature to me now that I don’t even think about it. I just think of that volume slider as an extension of the instrument. And I ride the slider up and

Conceptualizing

165

down to create breathing and phrasing and forward motion.” James Newton Howard is known for his convincing orchestral mockups. In his interview with John Krogh in Keyboard magazine, he says, “To me what gives away a sample-based orchestral score more than anything are the beginnings of phrases—the embouchure or, in the case of brass, the attack part of a sample. I use the volume pedal to de-emphasize the portion just after the initial attack of nearly every note, so as I hit a note, I pull back the volume briefly to create the kind of attack humans make with their wind or string instruments. A sound doesn’t just start at full volume: there’s the attack, then the sustain, which usually starts a bit quieter than the initial attack.” This indicates the high degree of detail necessary for an effective orchestral replication. Howard pays attention to the actual impact of an attack. Some instruments sound early, some late. He plays each part differently in order to account for this discrepancy. “And I quantize absolutely nothing when it comes to strings or winds. Drums are a different matter, of course.” He uses velocity-switched layers for different dynamic ranges, but not excessively, and lowers the output gain in the samplers to help mask the fact that they are samples. He uses the expression pedal, but not the sustain pedal, which he says tends to neutralize the dynamics of a sustained note or chord. Achieving the best ambient sound to create a more homogenous sound is important, so he will send all of his untreated samples he’s using through hall and room reverbs from two Lexicon 480Ls. Like his colleagues, Howard does a lot of layering in order to get the best orchestral sound, playing each part again using a different sample. For instance, he’ll use an open string ensemble sample for a chord progression, “and then double it with a muted string ensemble because the bottom characteristics of the mute are much nicer. You wouldn’t do this with a real orchestra, but with samples it’s sometimes necessary for making it sound realistic. You shouldn’t approach MIDI orchestration with the same instrumentation guidelines you’d use for a real orchestra. That’s part of the secret to making mockups sound real.” Bringing in Soloists There are times when no sample or electronic patch will do. Nothing electronic will replicate the special acoustic performance you will be using. John Powell and Harry GregsonWilliams ran into this on their mockups for Shrek (2001). “As we’re doing our demos, we quite often bring in a player to come and do a solo part there and then,” says Powell. “Sometimes to help sell the demo. And sell the tune. I mean one of the things in Shrek—Shrek’s tune is played on a double bass. That’s not something you can temp up. It’s just such an odd sound. It sounds like a cello which has got problems. It’s beautifully played, but there’s something about it that’s quite unique, so I just had no samples that could ever it do any kind of justice so we brought in a player.”

MOCKUPS FOR COMMUNICATION Mockups work as a way of collaborating with the director or the filmmakers and bringing them into my world, so that there are no

On the track

166

surprises at the end. —Harry Gregson-Williams

Trevor Rabin begins the mockup process before he starts working on a film. His method is to create an eight- or nine-minute suite of themes and other musical material that he imagines will be good for the film. This immediately opens up his dialogue with the director, and can influence the temp track choices as well. It can also open up the composer to a variety of creative possibilities. Once you are writing, on some projects you might see the director at your studio every day or two; in other cases perhaps once every week or more. “It really depends on how long a time frame we have,” says John Powell. “And how much time he has. Anything from every two weeks to every night. I did Rat Race [2001] in about two weeks. And it actually proved to be really cool. Jerry Zucker didn’t live very far away. He really enjoyed coming over and working on the thing, and every night I’d have a new cue for him, and he’d come over and we’d talk about it. It was great.” With John Debney, the norm is every few days. He is less enthusiastic about directors coming over too often, because it tends to slow him down. “I personally like to really blast ahead a bit. My favorite thing is to get a whole reel done. Because I’ve found now through having worked this way for a long time that the isolated cue here or there is sometimes very off-putting for them. They can’t maybe see what my vision is, and seeing it in its totality a reel at a time sort of gives them the feeling of how I’m using the theme and weaving it through. And in that way I’ve been more successful in getting buy-offs, I think. It used to be that I would, for whatever reason, jump around a little bit and try to represent this theme in these different places in the film.” Debney found that method to be less successful. The Director Responds The dialogue stimulated by James Newton Howard’s mockups for Martin Campbell, writer/director of Vertical Limit, was typical of the sort of interchange that mockups facilitate: “He would say, ‘I don’t think you’re highlighting this in the way I wanted, when I wanted to hear it with more of a surprise or shock,’ or, ‘This needs more energy,’ or, ‘I really wanted this to be romantic, I don’t think you’re addressing that.’ That kind of thing. He was very specific. We communicated well together.” During the course of creating your score it is typical for the filmmakers to find they are missing something in your mockups, whether it has to do with the overall concept, intensity of the music, the style, the colors, or something else. This is not something you want to hear about for the first time on the scoring stage. When Christopher Young was working on Entrapment (1999), the studio executives wanted to be sure there was an element in the score that would appeal to a younger audience. Young comments: “Had we not gone through the demo process it would have been catastrophic. It’s not to say that this issue couldn’t have been dealt with without the aid of mockups, if we’d all sat around the piano and I said, ‘And the percussion is going to be this and this and this,’ it might have come up right then and there. Or it might have been, ‘What do you mean, aren’t

Conceptualizing

167

there electronics? We need some loops in here, some synths.’ But it might never have come up.” Because of these discussions based on his early mockups, Young was able to add and integrate a good balance of electronic and percussion elements that satisfied the executive’s needs and pleased him as well. How Polished Should They Be? Some composers believe that the mockups should be absolutely as perfect and convincing as possible when they are played for the filmmakers. Hans Zimmer goes for this level of performance and sound. You can get a sense of his very impressive results by listening to “The Gladiator Waltz” (track 12) on the second Gladiator soundtrack CD (“More Music from the Motion Picture Gladiator”, see Figure 7.1). James Newton Howard says his mockups are pretty much finished cues. When he worked with M. Night Shyamalan on Unbreakable (2000), the director was astounded: “His mockup was so good that it was like, ‘Jesus man, don’t make it any better or you are going to lose the job of scoring the movie.’ It’s too perfect, you don’t even have to score it.” When Pieter Bourke and Lisa Gerrard worked together on their music for The Insider (1999), he learned that the mockups they sent off from Australia needed to be as polished as possible. “I made sure that every tape we sent was mixed as if it was the finished product.” This was even more important for them on that film because the director, Michael Mann, listened to music from a great many different sources. “When a director is auditioning a number of pieces of music from different composers and making decisions about which cue to use, a poor mix will affect that decision. I suppose we made more work for ourselves, but that’s the way it should be. If we can’t be there to present the work, we’re going to send the best possible example of the work we can. I’m glad we did, because it really made a difference.” On the other hand, Christophe Beck and Mark Mancina are often careful not to make the mockups too good. “I kept it really basic,” says Mancina. “I try to shy away from doing full orchestral mockups because it’s deceiving, that’s not what it’s going to sound like. [On Blade II, 2002] the only thing that I completely mocked up to get feedback on was some of the electronic sounds because we are actually going to use those in the score, so I had to make sure that was going in the right direction. In terms of mocking up the orchestra, to me, as long as they can hear what the melody is, harmonic ideas, the direction, and the intensity, there’s no reason to do fully orchestral mockups.” Beck has discovered that some of his mockup tracks are better than the final live recordings. “I obviously spend a lot less time on my mockups because there are two standards: one is good enough to give an idea for the director and the other is good enough to put on a CD. It’s hard to convince yourself that sampled strings sound better than real strings, but certain percussion elements that were just so in my mockups you can’t expect another player to get just so. So many sampled elements that are intended to be replaced by live instruments end up staying in.” Thomas Newman doesn’t record finished mockups cue by cue as he composes. His is a more continuous creative process, which although very stimulating and fruitful, can lead to some difficult moments in communication. When he was working on The Player (1992) a small amount of his unfinished recorded cues had been added to the temp track,

On the track

168

along with lot of music that he did not write and was not his choice. At an early screening, director Robert Altman and others weren’t certain what Newman had in mind, and what they did hear wasn’t complete enough to demonstrate his intentions. The temp score didn’t help, and there was some anxiety for a while as he continued to compose and record. “It was one of those movies where it was just so good to have seen it with no music, that you thought, ‘Man, what can I possibly add to this that’s not going to make it any less smart or its tone any less bitingly ironic?’ “His finished score answers that question eloquently, but the situation illustrates the hazards of offering less than polished demos except in a strictly working environment where the director and composer are discussing the score’s progress to bring the score to the next level. Sending out Videos Is it advisable to send out video of your cues with your mockups mixed onto one track? “I do send video out, but I hate doing it,” says Debney. He worries about the realities of less-effective FIGURE 7.1 Gladiator (2000)

Conceptualizing

169

© 2000 SKG Songs (ASCAP) and Universal Music Corp. (ASCAP) Worldwide Rights for SKG Songs administered by Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

On the track

170

monitoring and inferior sound. Another problem is there is no opportunity for the interchange between the filmmaker and composer that can clarify the many issues that might come up.

CHANGES Without having your score in the computer, keeping up with the rapid-fire changes that take place in the film editing process can quickly become virtually impossible. Over a period of weeks, there simply are too many changes taking place quickly, often lasting into the recording process. The flexibility factor is crucial if the composer, orchestrator, and copyist are going to keep track of all the changes day after day. Typically the music editor receives all current information about changes from the film editor, conforms their notes, and relays those changes on to the composer. If the composer is working with one or more orchestrators and the cue has already been orchestrated, they are likely to be conforming the affected cues to the new timings. When the filmmakers ask for changes, the discussions that follow can lead the way to satisfactory solutions that will please everyone. However, as Trevor Rabin says, it isn’t always that straightforward: “A lot of times they’ll hear something and say they don’t like it, and then the next time they hear it—‘Oh, actually that’s not bad.’ You have to regard what’s being said but I think it’s worth playing things a couple of times.” Bruce Broughton has a similar procedure he follows when he presents the basic thematic material. “I’ll play the theme through once, and then I’ll play it immediately the second time and start to talk as they’re hearing the theme, because they need to hear it a second time before they can make any judgment. And what I talk about is what the theme is

Conceptualizing

171

doing and what it will do. Then he says, ‘Now let’s hear the theme one more time.’ “By that time they’ve heard it three times—or at least twice. And they can make some sort of judgment on it.” There are times when you have to let go of the original cue and start over again. “I also make the mistake of trying to redo something when there’s no chance of it surviving,” says Rabin. “And because I’m happy with it and disappointed that it’s about to die, I keep going at it, knowing that I should just start again. It’s difficult. There were a couple of themes in Texas Rangers [2001] which I was really happy with that were basically tossed out of Armageddon [1998]. So, things can be used again. They have to be manipulated and changed somewhat, but themes are themes.” Limited Budgets With a limited budget you won’t be able to afford the elaborate backup assistance that characterizes the team efforts that are commonplace on medium- and large-budget motion pictures. Be resourceful: you will have to find other ways to provide for technical support in music editing, electronic assistance, samples and sampling, sequence polishing, sounds and sound design, synthesis, general studio maintenance and support, computers, software and hardware operational advice, recording and mixing, possibly music notation programs and/or copying and library preparation, orchestration, and other related skills. When you look at this list, you realize what a high degree of technical and artistic technique you need to possess when you work as a film composer for television or films. As we have seen already, a knowledge of the business aspects of music production for films is essential as well. As your projects grow in scope and you are able to bring in others with specialized skills to complement your work needs, you will be able to concentrate more fully on composing the music, but you will still need a thorough background in most or all of these facets of the field in order to most effectively guide your projects through the process from beginning to end. When budgets are small, perhaps you will be able to trade services with your friends and others who have experience in some of these areas of production. Provide assistance to them that satisfies a need they have in their work. Lend them a piece of equipment that will help them through their next project. Play an instrument for them on their session. Help them with your greatest strengths in return for their assistance in an aspect of filmmusic production you can’t handle as well. (See Chapter 25 for more insight into the business of film music, and Chapter 22.)

On the track

172

This page intentionally left blank.

Timings

173

III TIMINGS

On the track

174

This page intentionally left blank.

Timings

175

8 TIMINGS AND CLICKS I John Williams hardly clicks anything. He watches the clock and streamers (ten maybe on the long cues, two or three on the shorter ones). —Richard Grant, co-developer of the Auricle

I hate it when the technical side gets in the way. —Anne Dudley

WITH A CLEAR MUSICAL concept and a solid understanding W of the film and its dramatic needs, you can finally get down to composing. At some point, though, you must deal with the problem of synchronizing music to the film. This used to inevitably involve some mathematics—something that has unnecessarily put off many a potential film composer—but no longer. There is a lot of help out there for those composers who do not wish to get to involved with calculating timings and creating complex tempo maps for a cue. Pretty much everyone relies on the power of sequencers and other timings programs, especially Auricle: The Film Composers’ Time Processor, a computer application, and its compatible supplementary gear. You will find information about this system later, but first let’s assume for a moment that you wish to have available a resource to draw upon that will explain the various methods for dealing with timings questions and their solutions without depending on computer technology of any sort. Why Learn the Traditional Methods? With technology (and specialists) taking care of the timing and synchronizing issues that normally arise every day, why should anyone bother to learn how timings are handled without the technology? First of all you may not have anyone to help you on your project, in which case you’ve got to know how to work your way through the timings issues that are involved. Beyond that, there are other persuasive reasons. Composer David Spear, who has orchestrated for Elmer Bernstein, and is currently one of the teachers in the Buddy Baker Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program at the University of Southern California (USC), explains why he teaches the traditional methods for calculating timings and syncing music to picture: “What we do as film composers is to synchronize our music to fit the scene, like a tailor fits a piece of clothing to fit the person that he’s measuring, and we measure the scene in the same way. And craft the music to

On the track

176

fit the picture perfectly. As an educator, I think it’s important to understand the history, it’s such a short-lived history, of film music so far. And this is how it was done. And it was done extremely well in those days.” And again, what if the Auricle isn’t available, or you can’t afford to take an operator and the equipment with you to an out-of-town scoring session? And what if you need to make changes in the music to suit the director’s requests? Spear trains and drills his USC students so that they can handle any situation that comes up. “I test them in converting metronomic tempi into click tempi so that they understand how to do that. And also I give them assignments where they have to time a scene and come up with a steady click tempo so that it hits certain things.” He teaches them how to calculate the click value of any tempo, and to convert these tempi to and from metronomic equivalents. He gives his students free timing exercises also. Don Wilkins, director of the film scoring department at the Berklee College of Music, reports that they too teach the traditional methods of working with timings along with, of course, the new technology. Getting Started The truth is that you rarely need to sync music to film more tightly than within 1/3 of a second, but even when you need to hit a moment (within 2 frames) the process is not unreasonably difficult, and the mathematics involved is straightforward. Many composers are no longer receiving timing sheets from their music editors, nor are they creating their own. They lock their computer programs in sync with the film (on some sort of video or digitized version on their hard disc) and work out their synchronization visually. However, timing sheets give you an easily accessible blueprint of the sequence you are scoring, and can be really helpful. With the music editor’s timing sheets in hand, you have a list of the film events and the timings where they occur. Your first move is to circle the timings of the events with which you want the music to synchronize. The next step is to select an approximate tempo and to express these timings in music notation on blank music paper. Prepare a sketch with timings above each barline, with scene descriptions and event timings written above the relevant beats on this sketch. You can then see graphically how the music fits the film. Try not to be discouraged if this seems tedious at first. As John Cacavas puts it, “The thing that takes the longest is figuring out the timing. Once I have that done and it’s in front of me with the action indicated on the page, things seem to fall into place easier.” Just how you decide to approach playing the drama is a separate subject: Do you play through the drama, establishing a mood for a while as the drama unfolds? Do you carefully phrase the drama within these sections, musically acknowledging both obvious and subtle shifts in dramatic and emotional tone? Do you hit the action at certain points? These are all significant questions that must be asked and answered each time you score a film (see Chapter 10).

FREE TIMING Click tracks—provided by the Auricle system (calibrated in frames and eighths of frames

Timings

177

or beats per minute) or other computer programs (calibrated in beats per minute)—are so commonplace in film recording that one might assume they must always be used. Yet if you had no click available when planning your music synchronization, you could instinctively apply common sense and run a stopwatch as you mentally performed your music (in proper tempo, of course). If you noted the stopwatch timings on your sketch paper as you passed each bar line, you could write into the music the timings and descriptions of the film events above the beats where they occurred. You could then alter the music as needed to make it fit the score. At the recording session it would not be difficult to re-create that tempo and successfully play the music to the scene. This free-timing method doesn’t provide the sharp syncing required in some scenes but it is nonetheless a useful, even preferred method for many cues. Its advantage is the increased musicality and flexibility that results when the conductor and musicians aren’t overpowered by the relentless click. When recording using free timing, the composer watches the film as he conducts the orchestra to accomplish the synchronization. Even without picture projection, the conductor can use a clock with a sweep second hand so as to successfully sync the music to the picture. By skillfully varying the tempo as needed, you can make the timings written in the score conform to the clock’s time. This, of course, assumes that the music is basically nonrhythmic and flexible in tempo—usually of a flowing or even rubato nature—and is accompanying film that does not require making specific hits. Free timing is easier to use when one hit in the music cue is required, because the music editor can subsequently slide the music forward or backward a bit if necessary. However, it is more difficult to make more than one hit per cue, because sliding the music to correct one hit would obviously change the position of the other. An experienced conductor will be able to achieve this with practice. In free timing the music editor can provide two conducting aids: punches and streamers. Punches (shown in the music as + or ) are multiple marks electronically added to the video that produce a short sequence of fluttering light pulses on the screen. These serve as preparatory signals for the start of a music cue or as barline markers within a cue. If used as conducting aids, they can be prepared to set the tempo of the incoming cue, or can be punched one second apart [or one foot of 35mm film (2/3 of a second)]. A streamer (shown above the score as ) is seen as a vertical line that moves across the film frame. This is a guide to help the conductor start a cue or sync a point within the cue. The conductor may work with 3-foot, 4-foot, or 5-foot streamers (2, 2.6, and 3.3 seconds, respectively), the same length formerly used when streamers were etched on a 35mm blackand-white film dupe. Most conductors still prefer a 3-foot streamer (the default setting on Auricle), but be sure to tell the music editor your preference. The longer streamers give you more preparation time before a specific downbeat or hit. John Williams uses 4-foot streamers. Music editor Daniel Allan Carlin explains how streamers were prepared prior to video: “It was our practice to etch the streamers by placing the film in a specially designed ‘streamer board’ that held the film in place with pegs, then folding the hinged and angled top over the film, scraping the emulsion off with a metal scribe, and finally, when appropriate, coloring the etched-off area with a magic marker.” Removing the placement

On the track

178

of such a streamer was impossible, because it was etched permanently onto the film; a new streamer could be added wherever desired, even on the scoring stage, but the process was tedious and very time consuming. Not only do punches and streamers help the conductor make the music fit without the use of clicks, but they can be used in combination with clicks to handle intermixed rubato and steady tempo sections of the score. As William Goldstein notes, “I worked on a score where a big chunk was done with streamers only. And there were a number of cues that were combinations of clicks up to a certain point, or we started out just to picture and then brought in the click at a certain point with warning clicks. I also did some cues just following punches on every measure.” Streamers today are used to some degree, especially for the occasional sequence that is not clicked out (that is, conducted to free timing). Punches are used less often, but it is strictly a matter of the conductor’s preference. Aleatoric Cues The coloristic and emotional textures of aleatoric music seem just right for some psychological film situations, but this compositional technique may make film synchronization more difficult. John Corigliano solved this problem when scoring his freely timed, tangled orchestral textures for the hallucinatory scenes in Altered States (1980): “The aleatoric sections were no problem to sync. I used a kind of notation that made it possible for the conductor to align it as precisely as he wanted to. I used ‘cues’ FIGURE 8.1 Timing Example.

FIGURE 8.2 Click Book Page (12-Frame Click).

Timings

179

instead of beats. The cues then were simply linked up with the stripes [streamers] and the pops [punches] by conductor Chris Keene. He’d be beating a regular three beat but instead of three equal beats it would be three cues and each one of them (if it were synced to anything like a stripe) would easily fall into place. For this more abstract kind of music it works well” (see Figure 8.1).

On the track

180

USING CLICKS AND CLOCK Free timing is not practical for many music cues because: (1) the cues may require a steady tempo that would sound unmusical if varied to make the music fit the timings; (2) several hits must be caught, which is extremely difficult to do in free timing; or (3) there is prerecorded music with which the orchestra must be perfectly in sync. This last reason has become the most pervasive in practice. When planning to use a steady click, you must know the exact point where each beat of a steady tempo occurs so that you can calculate dramatic events in music notation. If the metronome tempo is MM 60, it would be easy to calculate the internal timing, because each equals one second. Figure 8.1 demonstrates the calculations necessary to make hits at :06.5 and :09.3. This tempo (or at MM 120, where each equals 1/2 second) is particularly easy to work with because of the mathematical simplicity. The easiest way to use any tempo with assurance and precision is to use a click book. These books give tables of timings; each page shows timings for one particular tempo, calibrated in film frames divided into eighths of a frame. The timing in seconds is given for each numbered click (beat). (See Figure 8.2 for the table for the tempo setting of MM 120). The first click book was assembled by music editor Carroll Knudson in 1965. For years the click book was referred to as the Knudson book. Figure 8.2 is excerpted from the complete click book by Alexander R. Brinkman, based on new algorithms, originally printed in the first edition of On the Track. Before the Auricle and other computer programs created clicks, music editors prepared loops of 35mm film by hand punching holes at regular intervals in the optical track so as to produce metronomic clicks. Because film runs at 24 frames per second, 24 frames between clicks produces one click per second (60 beats per minute, or MM 60), 12 frames between clicks produces two clicks per second (120 beats per minute, MM 120), and an 18-frame spacing produces 80 beats per minute (MM 80). Finer gradations of tempo were possible not only by setting clicks at whole-number intervals (for example, every 7, 8, 9, or 10 frames) but by using fractional spacings like , , and so on. These finer gradations of tempo were possible by subdividing each frame into eight parts and using the four sprocket holes per frame (of 35 mm-size film) as visual guides to line up the punches (sounding as clicks) (see Figure 8.3). Electronic digital metronomes and click books followed this tradition and divided the frame into eighths. Although computer sequencers are often calibrated in beats per minute (to the nearest 10th or 100th), some computer programs can be calibrated in eighths of frames. These programs can easily expand the number of usable tempo settings by indicating finer subdivisions expressed in decimal parts of frames (for example, 10.90 frames per click). Decimal Equivalents Decimal points should not be used in writing click numbers if calibrated in frames, because 9.1 is likely to be read as 9 1/10 rather than 9 1/8. However there are times when

Timings

181

using a calculator that you would need to express click tempos in true decimals (see Figure 8.3).

METRONOME EQUIVALENTS Frames per click tempi are inversely proportional to the MM (Maelzel’s Metronome) numbers, which give beats per minute (see Figure 8.4). Because there are 1,440 motionpicture frames per minute (24 frames × 60 seconds), you can easily find the metronome equivalent of a click tempo by dividing 1,440 by the number of frames per click. For example: for a 13 3/8 frame click, divide 1,440 by 13.375. The MM equivalent is MM 107.66. Using the Click Book The click book was the universal source used to calculate timings until its use was gradually and eventually phased out in the nineties. Some composers still do find it helpful, and if you are working without technology, it is virtually indispensable. When using the click-book method, select the page representing your chosen tempo and copy the timings on your sketch’s timing line (just above the score’s top staff) on successive bars or beats. Then notate the rhythmic position of film events on that line. In FIGURE 8.3 Film Frame Divided into Eighths.

FIGURE 8.4 Table of Click-Track-to-MM Conversions.

On the track

182

tempos faster than frame every other bar may be frequent enough. This method does not require the conductor to actually use the click during the recording; these timings are equally useful whether one uses the click when recording or conducts using the clock. Using a Table of Various Note Values When you have chosen a tempo and have turned to the appropriate page in the click book, it is helpful to make a small table listing the lengths of several note values, ready to be used in spotting film events. Brinkman’s click book furnished these tables of note values at the bottom of each page (see sample click pages in Figures 8.2 and 8.5). An alternative click book is entitled The Click Book by Cameron Rose. The note-value table for the click-book page (for a 13-frame click) in Figure 8.5 was

Timings

183

constructed by first taking the value of one click unit , found by reading from the main table the timing at beat number two. (The duration of one click unit is the length of time between beat one and two, because the clock is at zero when the first click sounds.) FIGURE 8.5 Click-Book Page. (13-Frame Click).

On the track

Dividing :00.54 by 2 gives us the value:

184

. The complete table then is:

Timings

185

Figure 8.6 provides a layout of numbered beats (clicks) at this tempo on blank sketch paper, against which there will be hypothetical film hits at: :14.54 Fast pan to boy on hobbyhorse (a “soft” hit) :21.87 Crash! (a “hard” hit) The meter is 4/4; the click is a 13-frame click. The click table shows that the first soft hit at :14.54 falls between click numbers 27 and 28. It is :00.46 after click 27’s timing of : 14.08, and :00.09 before click 28’s timing of: 14.63. The latter click (28), less than 1/10 of a second off, will be close enough for this soft hit. The hit at :21.87 comes :00.20 after click 41 (at :21.67). According to the table of assembled note values, this is very close to the duration of one triplet (:00.18). The error of :00.02 is less than a person is able to detect. Also this rhythm is easily performed at this tempo, this being one of the essential criteria for any musical solution.

WHEN TIMINGS DON’T SYNC When several hits that need to be dead-on accurate occur within one music cue, you may not find workable timings in the click table for your chosen tempo. Test Adjacent Click Tables In that case, examine the click-book pages before and after that page. The actual tempo differences of these adjacent pages are undetectable but the accumulated timing differences can make the hits correlate better. When using a computer program, change the setting and see what happens. Try Offsetting When the timings in the table are slightly off to a consistent degree (either faster or slower) from the timings of your hits, you don’t need to change tempo if you can offset the start of the cue slightly by shifting it a bit earlier or later. For example, if your tempo is a 13-frame click (as in the table in Figure 8.5) and your hits are at :03.71 and :05.86, you will find no click timings that match. When you subtract the hit timings from the nearest clicks you will find that they are, respectively, :00.46 and :00.44 late. Rather than look for another tempo, you can shift these hits to fall on beats 7 and 11 by starting the whole cue :00.45 later. Remember, you must subtract that offset :00.45 from each timing on the timing sheet to compensate for the later start. The music notation for the two versions is shown in Figure 8.7. FIGURE 8.6 Timing Example.

On the track

186

FIGURE 8.7 Offset Cue Start.

Original Timings

Offset Timings

:03.71

First hit

:03.26

:05.86

Second hit

:05.41

One of the great advantages in using a computerized filmscoring program or Auricle (see page 122) is the possibility of using the computer’s number-crunching abilities to try out a range of tempi to see which tempo fits the required hits in your film cue. The basic process is the same as the manual computation described here. An even more impressive and useful technique is to allow the program to adjust the tempo between two given

Timings

187

points. “For example,” says Ron Grant, “if the tempo were 60 beats per minute starting at bar one and you needed to move the score earlier by one video frame at bar 81, the new tempo would be approximately 60.00874 (slightly faster) and would be a little faster than that for bar 80 (60.00961). Of course, there is no way to know in advance just what tempo is needed to make the cue earlier by one frame for any bar. So, the usual starting points are just one or two places to the right (60.1 or 60.12) leaving the micro tempo changes to the computer.” Avoiding the Obvious It is not necessary, or even preferable, to make all film hits fall on the beat. With rhythmic music, this can produce an obvious, even lugubrious effect. It is often more interesting to have hits occur off the beat if they fall naturally into the musical style and flow. For example, if you use the same 13-frame click tempo and a rhythmic theme to write a cue with three hits—(A) :01.88, (B) :04.30, and (C) :06.24—it appears at first that you should change tempos, because only hit B is actually on a beat (9). However, hits A and C are almost exactly an eighth-note value late (:00.26 and :00.28—at this tempo, at which an eighth note equals :00.27). This actually makes an interesting rhythmic pattern (see Figure 8.8).

REQUIREMENTS ON EXTREMELY ACCURATE HITS Extremely accurate hits (dead hits) require precision. But there is a physiological limit to the human ability to detect sync errors, and it is unnecessary and inefficient to persist in tighter synchronization than can be detected. Individuals differ in this threshold of perception, but a general rule holds that film experts can easily detect a two-frame sync error (2/24 sec., or :00.08) while the general public can detect three-frame errors (3/24 sec., or :00.125). One-frame errors are very hard to detect. Also, slight sync errors can only be perceived when both music and picture have very sharp changes in their respective sound and look: a sharp musical attack when the picture changes abruptly from light to dark, when a door slams, a FIGURE 8.8 Offbeat Hits.

On the track

188

FIGURE 8.9 Ritard Timings.

bullet hits, and so on. In addition, a hit that cannot be placed precisely where you want it will generally work better if the error makes it sound slightly late rather than early. The viewer detects an accent that is :00.1 early as being “wrong” because it is ahead of his visual and/or emotional reaction. Again, with only one spot-on hit per cue, the music editor can make an adjustment, if necessary, when he lays in the music against picture. If the sync on dead hits is not well within the two-frame (:00.08) limit, you are vulnerable to the additive effects of subsequent technical errors that may creep in. For example, during production, syncing errors are sometimes made in the use of a dropframe SMPTE time code (discussed in Chapter 9 and Appendix D). Other errors used to occur in the sound loop after the film was released, beyond the control of the production team. To compensate for these potential errors, the music must be more tightly synchronized than might otherwise be necessary. The Sound Loop On the release print of films, it is technically impossible to record the sound on the sound track exactly adjacent to the frame to which it is synced. This is because the sound recording must occur on a steadily moving medium while the picture must stop momentarily for each film frame. During each momentary stop, the shutter interrupts the light path two or three times to increase the flicker rate to 50 frames per second or more, a rate at which the human eye does not perceive flicker. To accommodate these two contradictory technical requirements, the position of the sound recording at any moment is offset from the picture, and leads it by 29 frames. This sound loop is of no concern to you in synchronizing your music because the loop is added automatically at the lab that prepares the release prints. Your only responsibility is to keep the music exactly in sync with the picture. It is difficult to conceive of intervals as small as one or two frames (:00.04 to :00.08), but musicians constantly must perform with such accuracy. For example, at the moderately fast tempo of MM 180 (an 8-frame click), each quarter note equals :00.33 and each sixteenth note equals :00.08. If one sets a metronome at 180 and performs the rhythm it is easy to hear the mistake if one player plays it correctly while another plays . In the incorrect performance, the second note is : 00.08 (2 frames) late.

Timings

189

RITARDS, FERMATAS, ACCELERANDOS It is important not to let technical considerations force you into rigid, nonmusical results. When the musical concept includes a rhythm section (for jazz/rock/Latin/pop styles), using click works well. Otherwise, if not recording to prerecorded tracks, playing to a click may rob you of the chance to use the expressive ritards, accelerandos, and fermatas that make music live (even with very refined tempo maps with all this expression built into the click-track guide). Still, in general practice, virtually everyone uses these highly sophisticated tempo maps (usually with Auricle) in planning and creating their cues, and then in achieving performances on the scoring stage. Even without prerecorded tracks to consider, you will often need the higher degree of timing accuracy that a click provides. Using clicks also makes it possible to intercut various recording takes (compared to free timing, where comparable beats do not always occur at the same time in various performance takes). And with any prerecorded FIGURE 8.10 Ritard Timings.

FIGURE 8.11 Ritard Timings.

tracks (which is very standard practice) clicks become even more essential to obtain good

On the track

190

performances. Music editors can customize a click to fit each variable tempo situation. Auricle and other programs will plot ritards and accelerandos and perform variable click patterns (see page 124). This presumes at least a high-quality program to handle these timing matters and the know-how to work fluently with them. You can make tempo variations without depending on the technology if you wish. To go into a ritard after a section in tempo, first lay out the click-book timings on your music sketch for the section in a given tempo. Then on the beat when the ritard is to begin, start the stopwatch, and, while mentally singing the ritard, jot down the timings of the passing bar lines. You have to be careful not to rush the ritard or you will ultimately be caught short when re-creating it on the scoring stage. With experience there should be no problem in duplicating these ritards during the recording session. In this case, the score must show the cumulative timings from the cue’s start so it can be conducted successfully. To calculate these timings through the ritard, add the ritard timings to the timing at the moment when you stop the click. In Figures 8.9 and 8.10, the chosen tempo is a 16-frame click. Say you decide to stay in click tempo until click 53 (:34.67). At this point start the stopwatch and time the ritard. When you jot down the ritard timings you will arrive at beat 61 at :09.33 (see Figure 8.9). Adding each of the ritard timings to the last click timing of :34.67 at beat 53, you get the cumulative timings from the start of the cue (see Figure 8.10). When performing this cue, you must start the clock on beat 1 and watch the score’s cumulative timings. If you conduct without using the click, you can make small tempo variations, adjusting the tempo to the timings written in the score at each bar line, and continuing to adjust tempo as you make the ritard. If you decide to use the click, turn it off as you go into the ritard. You can then start the clock on the first beat of music and rely on the clock as you make the ritard. When plotting the return to tempo after the ritard, again use the click-book timings but add each of these timings to the cumulative timing of the beat when it returns to tempo (see Figure 8.11). When performing this cue, the music editor (or someone else, if there is no music editor) must restart the click exactly at the time specified for a new tempo to start. Keep the clock running to give the cumulative time. Fermatas are handled similarly.

BACKTRACKING In planning any of these tempo variations, you will probably need to backtrack from a target time at the end of the desired tempo change. To find the correct time to start a ritard, for example, practice and time the ritard, then subtract that time from the target time. With repeated practice these methods become easy and reliable, and you will find yourself prepared to use technology to achieve your musical goals.

Timings

191

9 TIMINGS AND CLICKS II COMPOSER MICHAEL WHALEN, WHO teaches film scoring at Berklee College of Music, advises his students to develop a thorough facility in working with timings. He doesn’t necessarily favor one method over another. “Having a mastery of doing timings two or three or four different kinds of ways, you come up with your own way and you also know how to get out the click book and you’re working with a sequencer, and you’re also working with a music editor. I think all of the ways are all valid.” It’s a good idea to keep this in mind as you encounter the many timings challenges that are inevitable in film scoring.

MUSIC EDITORS The first step in hitting the action is to thoroughly learn the theory and mechanics of timings, clicks, and free timing, and to be proficient with your sequencer and/or with the Auricle. If you are working on a project with a budget that includes a music editor, the next step is to get to know and trust that person. Beyond his role in preparing spotting and timing notes for each of the segments to be scored, the music editor is normally the composer’s best ally among the filmmaking team. Everyone is looking after the interests of his own craft, whether it be sound effects, scriptwriting, acting, or whatever, but the music editor deals with the music and his specific interests coincide with the composer’s. The music editor can be invaluable in making sure the hits, the composer’s calculations, and the click details are correct. As we have seen, he will frequently be the person in charge of mapping all click, streamer, and punches information in the Auricle. If there are odd meters and switches back and forth between various meters, the music editor can work all that out as well. Traditionally, the same music editor stays with the motion picture and the composer all the way through its production. Unfortunately, the bind of tight schedules and economics in television has made that unpredictable. Musicediting companies are now often contracted to do this work and the composer may find himself working with several editors over the course of the project. This is not as desirable a way to work, but it happens sometimes out of necessity; with a first-rate musicediting service the results can be excellent. Nevertheless, the composer would be wise to be largely self-reliant and wellinformed about what he needs and how to ask for it. This is even more reason for novice film composers to be solid on their math and computer skills, because television is the medium where they are most likely to work first. The best music editors are very helpful, often anticipating and preventing timing problems. The late Gene Marks viewed his relationship with the composer as a collaboration: “I feel it’s important to get copies of the scores (or sketches at least) as far

On the track

192

in advance of scoring as possible. When it’s clicks, or even if it’s timings that they’ve indicated on the score, I’ll just check it by looking at it and comparing it with the timing notes. If an extra bar is written, or if the clicks numbered across the top or the bar numbers have a mathematical mistake, I don’t want to embarrass the composer, I want to protect him. I want to catch any problem that can be caught before you’re on that scoring stage with the tremendous costs involved.” Now music editors also check all computer information for accuracy, and will input all of the composer’s instructions for each cue. Former music editor Michael Tronick (now a film editor) adds, “My role [as music editor] was to allow the composer as much freedom as possible, and still understand what is best, almost as a silent partner—being able to handle the workings of the film and video. Awareness pays off—especially in being able to tell the composer how many bars have to be deleted and added when changes have to be made quickly because of the time and the pressure in terms of money—the dubbing stage is very expensive and the director wants his cue!” Most composers resolve most of the timing issues themselves working directly with their sequencing programs and, in some cases, Auricle. This requires that they have enough skill with the computer programs to handle odd meters and shifting time signatures. If not, they typically set their cues in the tempo they want them, and then may get some help with the final finessing of complex meters, ritards, and accelerandos. Nonetheless, whether or not the budget is available for a music editor, you will likely find yourself doing most of the timings yourself.

CUT BACK CUES AND SPLIT CHASES Everyday sync problems require solutions in postscoring that range from simple to very complex and sophisticated. In many situations the music will play across cuts back and forth between different scenes. This gives the sequence continuity and works best when there is an overall mood to play dramatically that makes its statement in both scenes. Yet there are times when the composer will want to change the mood, volume, and tension levels and other musical elements on each cut back and forth between different scenes. David Shire’s score for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) is a fine example of this, as the action frequently cuts back and forth between a subway (on which hostages are being held) and a communications center (where a transit supervisor—Walter Matthau—attempts to save the hostages). Each of these cut-backs was hit by the composer. Nevertheless, it is more typical these days to play through the cut-backs, maintaining the same mood throughout the sequence. Sean Callery has encountered many cut-backs each week on the television series “24” and tends to play through most of them, which gives the dramatic events a consistent point of view.

TEMPO AND MOOD CHANGES WITHIN CUES Changing tempo in a film sequence can be handled in several different ways, the easiest

Timings

193

being to record separately each segment that is in a different tempo and have the music editor assemble them afterward as one apparently continuous cue. That’s a safe and efficient way to work, because it is not difficult to get fine performances on shorter sections in one tempo. This is often done with very long dramatic segments with continuous music, which can go 8 or 10 minutes or longer. However there is a musical continuity that you gain by actually performing a cue that progresses through various tempo changes as one cue. Orchestrator/conductor Scott Smalley describes how this situa tion is typically handled: “It’s pretty much all click. We don’t do free timing anymore because we’re able to get such complicated tempo maps now with our sequencers. We can devise a tempo map that just is radically changing—massively erratic tempo changes. So when I do that now, and I’m conducting, I just completely slam into the new tempo and I communicate to the orchestra the new tempo through actually knowing how to conduct. If there’s a cue where there are really, really harsh tempo changes I will first of all go to the booth and announce to everybody, ‘Okay—this first run through with the orchestra, they are going to be going all over themselves. Do not be concerned, because the second time we run that cue, they are going to nail it.’ And it is amazing to hear how an orchestra can immediately key in to the tempo changes if the conductor is communicating properly.”

METER CHANGES WITHIN CUES The Auricle was already available when Charles Bernstein used a Bulgarian-type sequence of 11/8, 3/4, and 7/8 in one chase scene in the miniseries Sadat (1983), so he was able to make up a click chart to use in programming the then newly developed Auricle computer program (see Bernstein’s sketch, Figure 9.1). Many composers take advantage of the metric flexibility the Auricle offers and use odd and changing metric patterns freely FIGURE 9.1 Sadat (1983)

On the track

194

Copyright © 1983 Golden Torch Music Corp. without being concerned about performance problems. Jerry Goldsmith has used shifting metric patterns for years. He writes the patterns, uses his own Auricle unit in his studio, then his music editor Ken Hall polishes anything that needs a little more refinement in order to provide the smoothest, most accurate possible click track for the scoring stage.

TIMINGS WITH A CALCULATOR Click books and computer programs are invaluable resources, but they are not indispensable. All calculations can be done with a calculator alone. This method is not as easy as using the click book, and the newcomer to films is advised to stay with the click book until he is thoroughly confident—then he may find the calculator method given in Appendix C useful. The advantage of this method is that you are never dependent on a click book.

USING VIDEORECORDERS, DIGITIZED VIDEO AND SMPTE TIME CODE It is standard procedure for the composer to have a videocassette of the work print, and more and more composers are digitizing the video onto their hard drives. The current issues with digitizing the video are twofold: it is expensive to do, and it takes time; and with so many changes occurring on a daily basis, it can become difficult or impractical to keep the digitized video up to date.

Timings

195

If you use videocassettes, be sure to tell the music editor (or postproduction supervisor or music supervisor) which one of the standard VCR formats you work with at home: 3/4″ Umatic or 1/2″ VHS. If VHS, use a high quality two-track stereo recorder so you can have the production dialogue on one track and the SMPTE time code on the other. The 3/4″ Umatic has a separate track dedicated to the time code, so you will be able to have production dialogue and effects on one track and have a second track free for your own music or temp music, or a click. Whatever the format, the copy should be made with the SMPTE time code burned (inserted) into the picture. SMPTE is the acronym for the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, a standards-setting association. The SMPTE time code is a series of digital audio pulses that can be recorded on audiotape. These pulses encode numbers that give the precise timing address of any point on the tape in terms of hours, minutes, seconds, and parts of seconds (after an arbitrary start mark). They are displayed on the screen as shown in Figure 9.2. The first number on the left may be assigned the number of the reel rather than the hour, the second window reads minutes, and the third reads seconds. The window on the right reads as one of the following: 1. Tenths of a second (easily identifiable because the counter sequences from 0 to 9) 2. Hundredths of a second (counter sequences 0–99) 3. Videoframes (there are 30 video frames per second so this counter sequences from 0– 29) The difference between television’s 30 frames per second and motion-picture film’s 24 frames per second should cause no difficulty in determining timings from a videotape. Just convert the frames into their decimal equivalents by dividing the number FIGURE 9.2 SMPTE time code on videotape.

of extra frames by the total number of video frames per second. In Figure 9.2, divide the 27 by 30, which equals :00.9 seconds. (If that counter is measuring hundredths, the 27 already refers to :00.27.) This causes no change in working out your hits as long as the timings end up being measured in seconds (as opposed to frames or footages).

On the track

196

DROP-FRAME OR NON-DROP-FRAME? Before your videocassette is made, you may be asked if you want the SMPTE time code in drop-frame or non-drop-frame format. Don’t panic; this is just one of a large number of technical considerations in the television and film world that the engineers must deal with. It is safe to order your video copy with time code to run in drop-frame mode; by doing so you will be prepared to interface with integrated video systems. The Auricle computer program specifies drop-frame, and other computer timing programs will specify their individual requirements. (For a more complete description, see Appendix D.)

AVOIDING CONFUSION IN MATH PROBLEMS Working out timing calculations always consumes valuable time that you would rather spend composing. Sometimes in the middle of an anxious all-nighter while pushing to finish the next day’s cues, the math can be burdensome, even confusing at first. In all cases it is vital that you keep in mind what units you are working with. Is it seconds and decimal fractions of seconds? Beats and parts of beats? Video frames, motion picture frames, 35mm footages, 16mm footages? Normally you can control this by asking your music editor for the format you want to use. Cue Timings vs. SMPTE Timings When you have received the videocassette dub and timing sheets, the SMPTE time code may not read the same as the music editor’s individual cue timings because the code on the cassette is continuous from an arbitrary start mark at the head of a reel. The music editor sets a new zero for the start of each cue. Normally you will be provided with a separate set of timing numbers that will give you the timings related to the film continuity itself (see Figure 4.3).

HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE In an era of rapidly developing computer technology, several computer programs for solving music-timing problems in films and television received attention and praise from Hollywood composers and music editors as far back as 1987 and 1988. One of them has now become the standard in the industry. The Auricle: The Film Composers’ Time Processor (known also as the Auricle Time Processor, or simply Auricle), developed by composer Ron Grant and his brother, software writer Richard Grant, and released in 1984, is a system set up to deal with the composer’s need to quickly find the best tempos and the best options for hitting cues, and to provide a programmed, variable click for the musicians to hear when recording. This click can have programmed ritards and accelerandos as well as subtler, undetectable tempo changes that allow the film hits to

Timings

197

come in more natural and acceptable places in the music. It can provide 7/8, 5/8, and other odd meters by combining different building-block units. Corrections can be made quickly on the scoring stage and the Auricle allows instantaneous pickups at any given point in a cue for rehearsing or recording to picture from an internal start in the cue. Data for the film hits are entered into the computer, where they are displayed on the computer screen against a grid representing the position of the clicks at any chosen tempo (but not limited to the eighth-frame calibrations of the Knudson click system). This time map gives a visual display of the way the film hits and music beats relate. Trial runs of different tempos indicate quickly and graphically which tempos provide the best “hit” opportunities. You can feed your MIDI information into it from another program and Auricle will work with it. The program runs on any PC (it is not Macintosh compatible). Mac users have a separate PC dedicated to Auricle. Richard Grant explains how a composer will work with the system: “You tell the Auricle the music starts here, I think I’m going to be in 7/8, so re-meter bars to 2+2+1+1+1, it actually clicks subdivided meters, and then he looks at his notes and he looks at the picture, he goes, ‘Well, let’s see, my tempo is about here,’ and he tells it click equals 13.1, plays it against the picture, that sounds about right, then he takes a look at where his obligations are, and he goes, ‘Oh, I’m a little late here, let me speed it up, let me slow it down, let me add a beat, let me subtract a beat,’ and he maps it all out. And then that becomes the master map and then he’s doing this all through the score. He’s got note paper there. If you don’t want to use click on a cue, you simply type in the streamer locations, turn the click off, and conduct to streamers and clock only.” “There’s no underestimating what those guys have done,” says composer/orchestrator Mark McKenzie. “When we’re on the scoring stage it’s so easy, ‘You want to start in bar 72? Okay, and one…’ and you’re there. That fast.” Cueline Aps of Denmark developed a streamer, click, and character generator that is compatible with Auricle, which has further revolutionized this technology. Richard Grant explains what it can do. “The conductor will say, ‘Well, let’s do a pickup from bar 40,’ so you click cue on SMPTE from bar 40 and boom, on all the monitors it says, ‘4 free into bar 40.’ And then at the bottom of the monitor it gives you the cue name, like 1M1, and then it gives you the SMPTE address of the downbeat of bar 40.” It can be used now to drive the entire scoring session, everything in sync. (For more information about Auricle, see www.Auricle.com and Cueline Aps of Denmark at www.cueline.com.) The Auricle Time Processor was awarded an Oscar for technical achievement in 1987. The Streamline Music Scoring System (developed by Bob Badami and Bill and Dick Bernstein) essentially addresses the same problems, but from the slightly different stance of the music editor, who must make any sync system interface with the other equipment and standards of his craft. As described by music editor and coinventor Bob Badami, “At the heart of

On the track

198

Richard and Ron Grant. Streamline is a music calculator that solves the mathematical problems posed by linking rates with timings and beats. Using a spreadsheet-like environment, the user can design or model cues to whatever degree of complexity is required. Rates are referred to either in click rates or metronome settings. It provides a variable click plus warning streamers offered at click starts. It offers streamers and punches in selectable colors that can be quickly changed, deleted, or added at the scoring session. It also includes a play map of the finished cue in a format similar to written music with bar count, cumulative beat count, time or footage of each bar start, and rate changes. As each click plays, its corresponding mark lights up, providing a visual guide to the progress of the music.” The Streamline Music Scoring System was awarded as Oscar for technical achievement in 1989. The program runs on PCs. Many Macintosh sequencers have click and timings functions.

Timings

199

This page intentionally left blank.

On the track

200

IV COMPOSING

Composing

201

This page intentionally left blank.

On the track

202

10 PLAYING THE DRAMA I want to assume that I’m not there to tell an audience what’s happening so much as underline and deepen an experience, often by subtext as opposed to parallel comment. —Thomas Newman

I wanted to avoid histrionics. I think the drama speaks for itself. It’s always a question of taste how far you go. —Anne Dudley

There’s a certain thing that happens when I’ve done it right. It’s a certain chill I get when I really “get” a scene. There are certain scenes you know are right. —Henry Mancini

BEFORE YOU DECIDE HOW to score a film, there are other issues to resolve first: establishing the tone; deciding exactly what and who you are playing; and determining how emotionally expressive the score should be. Then you are ready to successfully decide how specific your music will be as it plays against picture: Will it acknowledge significant emotional and dramatic moments or play through them? How will you score any dialogue scenes that have been spotted? In reality, you may well be dealing with all these questions simultaneously and over a period of many days or weeks. The director’s point of view about all this will be extremely important in determining just how you play the drama. Sometimes establishing just the right tone or dramatic intensity is a matter of some trial and error: writing something and deciding how it works for you, then playing it for the director in sync with the picture so that you can discuss these questions in detail. In other cases, the style of the film (and the genre, also) may lead you to decisions. All of these matters have emotional implications. If the choice is between a great idea or a sincere expression of the film, which do you choose? If possible, try for both. Short of that, tune in to the film, get inside its texture and attitude, and be sincere. More often than not, a sincere (even if not intellectual) score will serve the film better than a clever idea with no emotional connection to the film.

Composing

203

AUDIENCE EXPECTATIONS When an audience watches a movie, they have certain expectations, for the most part associated with specific genres of films, which are based upon successful films within that genre. This is true with the music as well. The tradition and precedents can go back decades, as they do with Westerns, or they can develop more or less contemporaneously, as they did with John Williams’ space/fantasy scores for Star Wars (1977), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). If a film within a genre doesn’t deliver these elements, everyone notices and critics comment on the film’s deviations from this norm. The film may be hugely successful artistically and at the box office, or it may be quickly dismissed as a failed attempt at trying something different, but in either case the music must fulfill the expectations generated by the film. If the film simply follows the mainstream format for that genre, it is generic; if the music does this, it too is generic. The music is required to deliver certain values to satisfy those audience expectations. “Our first responsibility when we sit down to write a score is it’s got to say something and it has to make it’s point immediately,” says Christopher Young, “and one thing it cannot be is dramatically wishy-washy. So there are certain things that you have to embrace that you know will win a certain part of your audience over.” Craig Saffan continues: “You excite an audience in a certain way, and if you betray them they won’t want to go to see your movie. And musically, you can betray your audience. You have to be very careful about that.” These expectations are associated as much with the function of the score as the style. The score must do what the audience expects it to do at all the right places: to lift them up, excite them, make them curious, and move them. How it does this can be an individual matter, dependent upon the specific film and the composer’s talent. There is great latitude for inventiveness, freedom of expression, and style. Often these audience expectations lead to an inflexibility on the part of the filmmakers (and, many times, the composers) resulting in “generic” scores, music that could just as easily have been written for another similar film. Musical Expectations On a more specifically musical level, a study in the December 2002 issue of Science reported that “the abstract knowledge about the harmonic relationships in music inscribes itself on the human cortex, guiding expectations of how musical notes should relate to one another as they are played.” The Los Angeles Times, in reporting on this study, stated that “through constant exposure, synapses are trained to respond like a series of tuning forks to the tones characteristic of Western music…. By four months of age, babies already prefer the more musical intervals of major and minor thirds to the more dissonant sounds of minor seconds.” David Huron, head of the cognitive and systematic musicology laboratory at Ohio State University, concluded that “our brains have adapted to the way the music is.” This addresses the issue of audience expectations and is very relevant to the art and science of film scoring (see Chapter 14).

On the track

204

DON’T TIP THE STORY The composer knows how the film is going to end, but the audience doesn’t. He knows who wins the big race, who walks off into the sunset with whom, who dies before the closing credits. There are times when the director will want music to suggest potential terror and excitement before we would otherwise sense it (possibly as early as the Main Title, as was the case in Bernard Herrmann’s classic score for Psycho, 1960, and James Newton Howard’s Main Title music for Signs, 2002), or help the audience to feel the growing bond between two people even before the characters themselves are fully aware of it. But you don’t want to give away a plot point before it happens. There’s a sequence in Road to Perdition (2002) that raised this issue for Thomas Newman. “We know that the mother and son have been shot, we know that Tom Hanks [Michael] is on his way ‘cause he’s read the note, and then we know that Michael Jr. [his son] has seen the dead bodies, but Hanks doesn’t know. You don’t want to lead the audience, but you have to presume that they know more than the characters. I guess where they’re at pace with the characters is after Hanks comes home. So it was just terribly, terribly complex. You had to know when to shoot forward and when to lay back.” (The first shot after the murder is the cut to Michael’s car speeding home, at 00:41:05 from the start of the Dream Works logo.) Marvin Hamlisch faced this challenge while he was working on Sophie’s Choice (1982). “When you’re a composer, you’ve seen all two or three hours of the film, you know that that woman had to make that choice, but the audience doesn’t in the first hour and a half. They don’t know. So musically, you don’t want to tip that off, yet it’s part of her. And musically, you have to somehow have that be a part of her theme, and yet not let that dominate. Sophie wanted to survive, even given that choice. She was still alive.” So the essence of the character and/or the circumstances becomes part of the score without revealing the plot in any way. This makes the drama that much stronger.

TONE Any film music is about tone. If you get the tone slightly wrong one can run into a lot of difficulties. —Harry Gregson-Williams

The word tone is often used in literature and theater to refer to the attitude of a dramatic work. And the dramatic theme of the picture is presented with a certain tone. When that tone shifts a bit more toward comedy than drama, or is dark and gloomy rather than hopeful and uplifting, this shift in tone in turn redefines the theme. It is undoubtedly the film’s tone that has shaped the director’s ideas about the music, and the first requisite of a good film score is a sensitivity to it. A clear and focused tone need not require unidimensional storytelling. The comedy/action/adventure genre of film asks the audience to laugh at some points, be

Composing

205

thrilled at other times, and even fear for the character’s safety in still other scenes. The tone of successful films is clearly expressed early on, although often there are quick shifts between these emotions. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) is one of the most successful movies in this genre, and all those that have emulated its style have followed this principle. The audience knows the tone of Bandits (2000) through its writing, directing, acting, and its music. Therefore we can accept the eccentric adventures of its three principal characters as a lighthearted romp (see Figure 21.3). Reading the Tone and Attitude If the composer misreads this crucial element, the score will misrepresent the director’s intentions, seem misplaced, and often be discarded. Sometimes the filmmakers themselves have a blurred understanding of the film’s tone, and in those cases the composer may find it extremely difficult to find an appropriate concept. He can do so only by being in sync with the attitude of the film itself. If the film’s attitude is fuzzy, it can be problematic. The dramatic tone of the film And Justice for All (1979) seems never to have been clearly defined. Film editor John Burnett remembers the problem. “I think Norman [Jewison] had always said that it was a black comedy. Maybe it was. I wasn’t sure that was completely what it was. Norman wasn’t sure he had a clear vision. He wanted everybody to think he had a clear vision (and I’m not talking out of school—he’d say it himself). He wanted to say such-and-such but every time he explained it people would say, ‘I don’t know, Norman. No, I wouldn’t say so.’ ‘Well what’s your idea?’ And they were getting everybody’s ideas. We just had thirteen or twenty different ideas of what the movie really was. I know that was an extremely difficult scoring assignment.” If the film’s tone is not clear, the composer will want to learn as much as possible about the director’s attitude toward it. The best thing to do is to keep asking questions and demonstrating music in an attempt to define the film’s tone and consequently the music’s function. The animated film Antz (1998) was about a serious subject. “It’s about ethnic cleansing,” says John Powell, who scored the film with Harry Gregson-Williams. “The question became, ‘How dark do we make it?’” They worked closely with producer Jeffrey Katzenberg. Gregson-Williams remembers saying to him, “You know, Jeffrey, I’m a bit confused about who we’re making this movie for, because on the one hand it’s a Woody Allen movie, but on the other hand it’s ants, for Christ sake. And I don’t get it.” I mean, I got the movie, but I wasn’t quite sure where we were supposed to be aiming the music, or where we were going with the movie as a whole. And he said, “Look, Harry, just forget they’re ants. Think Romancing the

On the track

206

Harry Gregson-Williams. Stone. It’s boy meets girl. It’s princess meets—it’s Woody Allen meets Sharon Stone. It’s an adventure, that’s it.’” Even so, there are often individual moments in a film that require further refining. “Right at the end of the process,” says Powell, “after we’d finished scoring and it went for yet another preview, there was definitely some concern about how dark the film was. And the music had to go back in—it was the last thing that they could possibly do to try to lighten it up in a few places.” So they reworked the big shoe scene. “It was done as a terrifying huge monstrosity that chilled everyone’s heart, and everyone looked at it and said, ‘Could we make this into more of a Western?’ That’s what we had to do. We had to try and make it more like Indiana Jones” (The big shoe appears in Antz at 00:51:27.) The issue of tone also came up on their score for Shrek (2001). The issue is often a matter of degree: how dark or light, how intense (life or death?; more like an adventure?). The first dragon chase raised these questions, and the answers were discovered through discussions with Katzenberg and then trial and error. As Powell recalls, “We’d do a cue and Jeffrey would say, ‘Look, they’re about to be burned alive. I need this to be much more vibrant, much more exciting and much more danger. I need danger there.’ And so we do it again and then it comes back and he’s going, ‘Look, you’re frightening all the children here.’ And you come back to a nice compromise or whatever else.” GregsonWilliams adds, “It’s so easy to get it just slightly wrong.” So they looked for just the right tone: “Just so that the delivery was fun. And adventure. And not dark and, ‘Christ, they’re going to get fried any second.’ “Music starts as the dragon first appears at 00:33:12; another cue begins the next chase, at 00:38:26. Both emphasize the action/adventure aspect of the drama.

Composing

207

John Powell. A film like Charlie’s Angels (2000) raised similar issues for Edward Shearmur. “There were some cues that we didn’t end up using that played things in a traditional ‘let’s kick the narrative forward’ sort of way. And at the end of the day I think that everyone felt that’s not what this show was about. If you really tried to sell this story you were going to fall flat on your face. So where we went back and revisited a couple of times it was more about, ‘Let’s give this a little more sassy attitude rather than propel the story forward.’ You know their haircuts are going to stay well in place.” A somewhat lighter tone will probably be appropriate for films with a spirit of adventure in which the confrontations are not necessarily life-and-death moments, even though they may well feel like they are to the characters. Harry Potter and the Socerer’s Stone (2001) is a good example. Look at the scene at 01:09:05 in which Harry and Ronald fight the Troll. This cue begins as everyone exits the dining hall after Prof. Dumbledore (Richard Harris) has given them instructions. The confrontation begins at 01:10:15 and the tone is exciting with the sense of adventure and danger, but not as serious as confrontations in The Fugitive, Training Day, or Gladiator, each of which establishes its own appropriate tone.

MAIN TITLES Main Title music can say to the audience, “The movie you are about to see is…” and then establish the overall tone and attitude of the film, or prime the audience’s expectation as to what will follow. When Jerry Goldsmith was considering his score for Hollow Man (2000), he considered the function of the Main Title music. “I looked at it and thought of it as an overture to an opera. I was thinking in my mind, ‘What is this whole picture about? And how can I state it very simply and very quickly?’ In this case the picture was

On the track

208

not about all of the violence and everything else, but it’s really about this character who sold himself to the devil, more or less.” In cases where the film plays on more than one level—as does Foul Play (1978, Charles Fox), which combines romance, comedy, action, and adventure—the composer may emphasize just one dramatic element in the score over the main titles. Often the opening scenes dictate which element will be most appropriate. If the film starts with a murder during the main titles, you aren’t likely to score it with a romantic pop song— unless you are making an ironic statement. However, even though we see a Catholic cardinal die during the opening minutes of Foul Play, it is appropriate for this film to introduce a romantic song because Charles Fox’s Main Title music spins off of Gloria (Goldie Hawn) as she leaves a cocktail party, having been told by a friend she should develop more of a social life. Then the mystery/action/adventure quickly follows. Main Title Music Can Suggest the Drama Before It Occurs Even with a main title sequence with titles over a black background, James Newton Howard was able to set the dramatic promise and mood of The Sixth Sense (1999) with his music. The opening sequence in The Player (1992) gives no hint of the murder that will follow, but Thomas Newman’s intriguing music with light abstract percussion colors sets the tone for this unusual film. The American President (1995) is set in the White House, and Marc Shaiman’s Main Title music fully captures that aspect of the film, while also suggesting the romance that will develop. The Main Title music for K-PAX (2001, Edward Shearmur) suggests the drama to follow is not what we see on the screen. Howard Shore’s Main Title music for The Silence of the Lambs (1991) plays against an opening sequence in which Clarice Starling (Jodi Foster) is running through a wooded area. This sequence might have been played without music or with another musical approach, but Shore scored the beginning of this film with the implication of impending tragedy, giving us the suggestion of things to come (see Figure 10.1). In Agnes of God (1985), Georges Delerue begins with soft string entrances that get progressively more intense. The film’s title is religious, and the visuals during the main titles are of the church. But the music tells you immediately that there is more to this film than just the story of a pious nun. It sets up the experience for you, and leads you to expect tension, problems, difficult resolutions (see Figure 10.2). FIGURE 10.1 The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Composing

209

© 1991 OPC Music Publishing Inc. (ASCAP).

On the track

210

Composing

211

WHOSE POINT OF VIEW TO PLAY? Do you play the audience’s point of view or the character’s point of view? If you play from the audience’s viewpoint, you are scoring their emotional reactions to the film. They may not be reacting as the characters are, or as Thomas Newman pointed out in describing a moment in Road to Perdition, they may know more than the characters do. Watching Nine to Five (1980), the audience might laugh when Violet (Lily Tomlin) steals a corpse on a gurney from the hospital (thinking it is her boss whom she’s killed). But within the scene, Tomlin’s character is dead serious; she thinks she is in a lot of trouble. The audience knows she’s not. This situation might have been played from either the character’s terrified point of view or the audience’s. What did Charles Fox do? “I originally played it a little more broadly, from the audience’s point of view, allowing them to have a little more of a good time as they watched. The director, Colin Higgins, liked it very much, thought it was amusing, but thought it would be better to play it from the three girls’ point of view—they thought they really had actually killed him. So I toned it down, and reapproached it so the music had a little more of their feelings in it” (see Figure 10.3 at 00:56:58). It always pays to explore both approaches when this question comes up, and discuss it thoroughly with the director, demonstrating with music. Anne Dudley plays American History X (1998) from the point of view of one of the

On the track

212

central characters, Danny (Edward Furlong), the younger brother of a neo-Nazi (Derek, played by Edward Norton). He is writing a paper that he calls “American History X” for a high school class, in which he tells the story of his brother’s activities with the neo-Nazi movement and his assault on a group of black teenagers and time spent in jail. Consequently Danny becomes the narrator of this story. In Figure 10.4, Danny has begun looking at a box of Nazi memorabilia, leading to a flashback sequence in black and white during which Derek is arrested. The excerpt starts at 00:55:28 (orchestra and boys’ choir). Dudley plays Derek’s brutal assault with strong, edgy orchestral accents as he smashes the boy’s head into the curb, then reintroduces the boys’ choir as he is arrested. For the arrest she plays against what we are seeing, contrasting the purity of the choir with the ugliness we have just witnessed.

PLAYING THE OVERVIEW We have discussed playing the overview and not necessarily the specific emotions of the scene (see Chapter 6). James Horner’s score for Testament (1983) rarely plays the specific emotions of the moment, with scenes left unscored to allow the drama itself to create the overview emotion. Often, spotting decisions have a direct effect on the dramatic approach of a composer. Horner wanted to avoid being maudlin. When the mother (Jane Alexander) searches for her dead son’s lost toy, and later when she hears

Composing

213

her husband’s last message, there is no score. “It plays so well without music,” says Horner. “It’s so emotional and I felt that if I added music to that, all I would be doing is making it high anxiety. There is nothing I could say that would transcend or would enhance that mood. Whereas in the school-play scene, the music can play there. What it does is it pulls you out of the scene. In a certain sense, it comments on the whole scene. And it is less literal, but when she is running around and she is listening to his last message we talked about putting music on the last message and it was too early on in the film to do that. Whereas, running around, where she is looking for the bear, we both felt that we didn’t want music there because there was no way that the music could really transform that into anything different. I didn’t want to comment on the scene musically.” Horner’s score for the Civil War drama Glory (1989) plays the overview more often than not. As discussed in Chapter 6, his concept for this score is to play the purity and innocence of the black soldiers fighting courageously for the North. His score plays the idea of the film, not the action. When music adds another dimension, another personalized color or texture, it can begin to function as overview. For instance, listen to the long cue that begins with solo French horn at 01:36:32 as Shaw (Matthew Broderick) and his soldiers prepare for battle and then start their march to the beach. In this case, the cue builds in emotion as they move in on the fort, while the music is still playing the overview as well.

PLAYING WHAT THE SCENE IS REALLY ABOUT When you play against the picture, it is possible to play inside the picture by playing either the dramatic overview or the internal FIGURE 10.2 Agnes of God

On the track

214

© 1985 Golden Torch Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. emotions inherent in a scene. “Many times composers can approach that situation by playing something that refers to a bigger concept,” Elliot Goldenthal says, referring to his music for Michael Collins (1996), the powerful dramatic story of Ireland’s fight for independence early in the twentieth century. “Let’s say the concept of melancholy, of a world sort of pain, like these two people are in love but you know their romance is not going work out because this guy’s definitely going to die. And then at the same time there’s people getting shot up and killed and there’s a certain deep sadness of why human beings have to behave in this manner. So therefore the music can have this kind of overall world outlook melancholy to it and work perfectly for the romance and for assassinations, so to speak.” Goldenthal plays scenes of violence and romance with music that expresses an overview of the real meaning of the film. In X-Files: Fight the Future (1998), when Scully (Gillian Anderson) collapses from a bee sting (01:14:10) and the audience knows she might possibly be contaminated with an alien virus, Mark Snow’s music plays Mulder’s (David Duchovny’s) concern rather than the intense action of rushing her to the hospital and the subsequent rescue efforts. This is

Composing

215

a fine example of the music playing what the scene is really about, rather than illustrating or amplifying the action we see on screen.

Anne Dudley. Director Richard Michaels relates how he accidentally discovered the value of this approach while working on the television movie Heart of a Champion (1985, Mike Post): “This scene toward the end of the picture was the first fight that ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini lost when he was fighting for the championship. The score that was written was more or less a traditional boxing score. I never envisioned that the music would not be action music, so the composer wrote action music. It didn’t quite work. All of a sudden it seemed like there was too much boxing in the movie. And it wasn’t really about boxing anyway—it was about a guy trying to win a championship for his father, and he didn’t make it. So the music editor suggested taking a piece of music that was really very slow and sad that was actually part of the Main Title music—when the fighter was a little boy and was looking at his scrapbook—and trying it behind the fight scene. When he said that, I thought, ‘That’s crazy, that’s not even close to what it should be and what’s written for that—but let’s try it because we don’t like what’s happening here.’ And it was like magic; it transformed the scene. In fact it was so magical, instead of playing the scene with the sound effects foreground and the music background, we took down the sound effects and brought the music up. And the scene became about this boy’s disappointment, instead of about the fight. The fight was almost the background to the disappointment. It was wonderful. None of us intended it that way.” In the scene that Michaels describes, the music scores the subtext of the sequence, the emotion beneath the surface, the real story. James Horner’s score for Braveheart (1995) does that from time to time. During the big battle scene (at approximately 2 hours and 4

On the track

216

minutes) the music plays the gravity of the situation, not the action. In Revolution (1985) John Corigliano took a similar approach by scoring the sadness of the American Revolution, playing directly against the first tragic battle with the British. “They have a 7-minute battle scene which is a massacre, with so much sound and noise and killing that it’s ear-splitting. I wrote a six-minute piece about sorrow, about just how terrible this was, which is very slow while the action is very fast.”

GETTING INSIDE THE CHARACTER’S FEELINGS Most often, however, you will be playing the characters when you can. Jerry Goldsmith says, “What I try to do is to get inside people. I want to get below the surface. Try and anticipate what the person is feeling emotionally. What’s motivating the person as we see him is most important. I think that’s what music should do. What’s underneath is what’s so important.” You often need to get inside a character to play what the scene is really about. In novels, the author tells you what the characters are feeling, but in film it is often the score that does this. Still, this can be difficult if the film’s central characters have no depth, no dimension; Howard Shore states flatly that it is “impossible.” You really cannot convincingly put much more emotional substance into a character than is there. This often comes up in action and other genre films. And the director may not want you to dwell on characterization, especially in genre films. “Quite often they’re not interested in that,” he says, commenting on the current filmmakers. “They’re interested in thrills and chills. They miss the characterization of it, and you see that all the time in contemporary movies. And you see how quite often they won’t take the moment, they don’t quite trust it, you know. And they don’t think people are going to inherently believe it so they don’t go there, but if you’re willing to take the chance, like Jonathan [Demme] did with Silence of the Lambs, you can see what you could accomplish if you’re willing to do it, to take the risk. And put your heart out there. A lot of people are afraid of authenticity. Reality.” In Salvador (1986), Georges Delerue’s music reflects the emotions of Rich, an American journalist (James Woods) and photojournalist John (John Savage), as they walk toward a hillside piled with dead bodies (00:27:53; see Figure 10.5.) This material can also be heard at 00:13:18; the cue begins after Rich and Dr. Rock (James Belushi) have been stopped and interrogated by soldiers who order them out of their jeep at gun point.

PLAYING THE ENVIRONMENT OR LOCATION This is particularly effective for thrillers and suspense films, where characterization may not be nearly as significant as the place in which the characters find themselves. “In Alien3 (1992) for example,” Goldenthal says, “I wasn’t thinking about the characters in the movie, in general. Maybe just the little girl who was dead. But at any other time, for the most part I was thinking FIGURE 10.3

Composing

217

Nine to Five (1980)

© 1980 WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 10.4 American History X (1998)

On the track

218

© 1998 New Line Tunes (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Used by permission. about the environment, the location. Like, you don’t want to walk into that room—that kind of a thing.”

PLAYING THE SITUATION Goldenthal points out that there are times when he plays the dramatic situation rather than the characters. You can hear this in his score for Heat (1995). During the scenes between Neil (Robert De Niro) and Eady (Amy Brenneman), there isn’t a conventional romantic feel to the drama, and yet they are involved in romantic moments. “I tried to create the pull between them or the tug between them. And not necessarily them as characters but

Composing

219

the magnetism that held them together.” This is an impersonal approach, suitable for that film. Music for the first scene featuring Neil and Eady starts in the diner in the preceding scene at 00:28:25; music for the second scene plays as though it could be source music, beginning at 01:05:39.

HOW INTENSELY TO PLAY THE DRAMA People say all music is operatic. And I say, “Yes, but some of it is more so than other.” —Howard Shore

There is always more than one way to play a film. The degree of intensity will be a factor in shaping the score. Some composers by their nature are inclined to play everything larger than life and emphasize the full range of emotional content of the drama; others might be more inclined to understate whenever possible, playing little of the emotion and letting the drama speak for itself. Whether or not a composer leans in one direction or the other, the film and the director will ultimately determine the outcome of the music in this regard. If the director expects the music to be emotionally expansive and to play the highs and lows of the drama, your score will not remain in the film if you don’t express that emotional range and intensity in the music. Conversely, if he expects an extremely understated score and you write “over the top,” your music will never make it onto the release print. FIGURE 10.5 Salvador (1986)

On the track

220

© 1985 Cinema ’85, a Greenberg Brothers Partnership. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

221

This issue arises, even if only on specific cues, over the course of a project. When Edward Shearmur worked with director Kevin Reynolds on The Count of Monte Cristo (2002), one scene that raised this question was the moment when Edmund Dantes (Jim Caviezel) goes to the island to find the treasure. “The original cue was probably much more outlandish in the sounds that I used, there was much more percussion. My initial concept for the sequence was to give it a lot of kinetic energy. And Kevin wanted something that was much stiller than that. So that had been his conception for that sequence right from the beginning and he wouldn’t be pried away from it.” When the scene was being dubbed, the director had the music editor create a new version of the cue, working with several other cues in Shearmur’s score. (This scene begins at 01:10:49, as the boat approaches the island.) Composers often refer to their scores as “operatic” if the score is “big,” for a film with an epic quality and large scope. Hans Zimmer has referred to his score for Gladiator (2001) in this way. “Lord of the Rings is an opera in concept,” says Howard Shore, who defines his scores for this trilogy as operatic. “And what I mean is, it’s three acts. It’s three films. And it has the complexity and the relationships of what we think of as opera

On the track

222

music, because it so goes beyond what you think of as a film score. A film score you think of as having just a few characters and it doesn’t always have the scope of what you think of as opera music. I don’t know if it has to do with drama. I think FIGURE 10.6 A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

© 2001 Songs of SKG (BMI) and Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI). Worldwide Rights for Songs of SKG Administered by Cherry River Music Co. International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved. it’s an emotional thing.” (See Figure 6.6 for an excerpt from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.)

Composing

223

This is an intense, full-range way to score a film. Some films resist this treatment, some directors don’t want it and many composers will be able to create an appropriate score within a greatly reduced emotional spectrum. Rachel Portman’s score for The Cider House Rules (1999) illustrates this, as does her score for Chocolat (2000). In Chocolat even the most dramatic moments are not played intensely. When a fire appears to threaten the life of Vianne’s (Juliette Binoche’s) daughter, the music only builds moderately to an explosion as she and Roux (Johnny Depp) race toward the fire, fearing the worst. Again, when her daughter is discovered to be all right, the music does not pick up the intensity of the performance. This sequence begins at 01:28:27 as she starts to run toward the fire. (See Figures 6.3, 6.12, 10.8, and 14.8 for excerpts from Chocolat.) Chocolat is scored with a folk-flavored chamber orchestra, but holding down the music’s intensity isn’t restricted to the use of a smaller ensemble. For A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), John Williams used a symphonic orchestra but the performances are emotionally restrained, played often without much expression and little dynamic range. Vibrato is used sparingly, all of which distances the score from the characters’ emotions. Williams’ choice of harmonic language further emphasizes the separation between score and drama, and yet within these tight restrictions, he is playing the drama with great empathy. When Monica (Frances O’Connor) decides to imprint David (Haley Joel Osment) with a special code that will bond them forever, Williams’ music remains restrained. The cue starts at 00:20:35 as Monica buttons up David’s pajama top; the excerpt begins after she speaks the last three words of her prepared recitation, “Monica, David, Monica.” There is a pause in the score, then the excerpt begins at 00:23:28. Williams phrases the music to acknowledge another emotional level, adding a piano theme after David says, “What were those words for, Mommy?” Monica replies, “What did you call me?” and David says, “Mommy” (see Figure 10.6).

LESS IS MORE/UNDERSTATING THE DRAMA Less definitely is more. Because people are watching this in real time, and you’re not writing it in real time. —Thomas Newman

If it’s a really emotional picture, one of the things I’ll be concerned about is that the music doesn’t add emotions—because then you start getting close to melodrama. —Richard Michaels, Director

That’s the subtlety of music, really, it’s the subtlety of getting something to start your emotions gurgling? but not going overboard. —Marvin Hamlisch

On the track

224

FIGURE 10.7 The Gift (2002)

© 2001 Thousand Lakes Music. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. International Copyright Secured, All rights reserved.

Composing

225

“Less is more” is an axiom that is difficult to trust. You maylook at your score page and wonder how so little could work sowell, or even work at all. But in film, you want to aim forjust the right music: the right density and intensity, the perfectempathy with the drama. Each film and each score will redefinethose limits. The right density and texture for The Matrix (1999)would be much too much for an intimate film like The CiderHouse Rules (1999). At the extreme of understatement is sparseness. Christopher Young’s score for The Gift (2000) offers several examples. He plays several quiet scenes with a solo fiddle early on in his score, returning to that color to score a very dramatic moment as Donnie (Keanu Reeves) returns to Annie’s (Cate Blanchett’s) house at 00:16:47. Young’s music responds to the intensity of the drama, but only within the very subdued framework of the solo fiddle, which is now playing much more dissonant intervals (see Figure 10.7; the excerpt begins at 00:17:06 after Donnie says, “Satan worshipper”). Shortly thereafter this same material is developed further, playing an even more intense scene as Donnie bursts into Annie’s house to get his wife (Hilary Swank). This cue starts at 00:20:06. Rachel Portman found moments in Chocolat (2000) to score with only a solo, unaccompanied wind instrument. These become very personal moments with the onscreen characters, and are not restricted to relatively unemotional scenes. One of the deepest emotional moments, and a turning point in the film, occurs late in the film when a suitcase containing an urn with the ashes of Vianne’s (Juliette Binoche’s) mother accidentally opens and the ashes spill on the staircase and floor below. It will become an emotional release for Vianne, and yet Portman’s score begins as a single line played by a solo cello (see Figure 10.8). The cue starts at 01:42:43 after Vianne’s daughter says, “I’m

On the track

226

sorry Momma—I’m sorry,” after the urn has fallen out of the luggage and down the staircase, breaking into pieces and scattering the ashes. If you are not careful, you can bring too strong an emotional statement to a film. Sometimes a composer can’t resist showing off or going for the cheap response. As Thomas Newman observes, “I’ve heard guys say, ‘Yes, I got a standing ovation over that cue, and then they threw it out!’ Another pitfall is to think that everyone is expecting you to bring a high level of intensity to a moment in the film that may not warrant such a treatment. “There are these moments of discomfort that go by you,” Newman continues, “of trying to please people and in the end you’re not even going to be in the room when the sound guys or the editor or the director’s going to be saying, This cue is just working way too hard.’ “In both cases the composer is allowing his ego to get in the way of his good judgment. If you don’t wish to pile more emotional material onto an already highly emotional dramatic situation, consider understating. Edward Shearmur did this in his score for KPAX (2001). “The critical thing with the score was really trying to find the emotional core of the score and trying to find a way of delivering an emotional response to the drama without being manipulative. I think it would have been a disservice to the film, a disservice to the performances to have amped them up in any way. There was a cue, in fact, that I wrote for the third of the hypnotism scenes. It wasn’t really a cue at all. It was really just an electronic FIGURE 10.8 Chocolat (2000)

Composing

227

© 2000 by Miramax Film Music. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. presence where he’s describing the killings. And even that was felt to be an element too much and we ended up taking it out. And you only really find out when that kind of thing is appropriate in a preview situation.” Within this frame of reference, Shearmur phrases the drama and does build to emotional climaxes. The cue illustrated in Figure 10.9 starts at 00:40:16 on Dr. Powell (Jeff Bridges) after Probt (Kevin Spacey) says, “My pleasure,” and begins to draw the orbital pattern K-PAX takes through the Constellation Lyra. The excerpt starts at 00:41:12 (with 1 bar of rest in the music) at bar 18 as Probt says, “I think that’s right.” The orchestra increases in intensity and volume as we wait for Probt’s orbital pattern to be superimposed on the scientist’s rendering. James Newton Howard has found a method of addressing this issue. “I just work on the biggest parts of the movie until they reach a dimension that is both dynamic and harmonic that feels that it’s part of the same score. A lot of that is just pure trial and error until I get something that feels like, ‘Oh, yeah, I can imagine this being birthed in the same space.’ Sometimes it’s much easier because you have a harmonic restriction. You know that, ‘Well I’ve written something based in this kind of tonality and this kind of chord structure and I’m going to keep it there and just amplify or make it bigger.’” Thomas Newman has scored several films with percussion and mallet sounds

On the track

228

combined with orchestra. The mallet colors in American Beauty (1999) and the percussion, mallets, and solo piano in Pay It Forward (2000) are more abstract emotionally than strings or woodwinds. This allows him to understate while still providing interesting textures and colors. The surprising piano, electronic, and mallet textures in the sequence in American Beauty in which Ricky shows Jane the video of a paper bag floating in the wind (at 01:01:53) are supported by soft strings, but on their kiss (01:04:35) the only emphasis Newman adds is a soft cello note, descending a fourth as the kiss builds (01:04:42; see Figure 10.10.) Again, even though the strings are playing, the emotional and dynamic range of the cue for the TV interview scene near the end of Pay It Forward is understated and restrained (01:50:24). It’s a very emotional scene, yet there is only a very slight rise in intensity as the emotion builds to the end of the scene. There are other similar cues in this score, including the end cue after Trevor (Haley Joel Osment) is stabbed (01:52:47; see Figure 10.11). Newman describes this as “addition as opposed to comment.” You will find applications of this idea in many places in his scores. “I guess one of the things that concerns me and interests me about music for film is why is music there in the first place? And if it is there, why is it saying something? And I guess the obvious reason is because sometimes a scene can be emotionally blank and therefore needs filling in. At the same time there’s such nuance, particularly in modern movies, of actor’s performance that I just never want to clobber that.” When you establish an understated score, a little bit of change (a small addition) will go a long way. In Newman’s score for The Player (1992), which also makes excellent use of mallets and percussion, when Griffin (Tim Robbins) backs away from the writer’s dead body, Newman plays the moment very lightly, featuring a wind chime FIGURE 10.9 K-PAX (2001)

Composing

229

© 2001 Songs of Universal, Inc. (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

230

Composing

231

effect. In this context, the addition of a low sustained bass note becomes a significant and sobering statement (00:38:15). High levels of dissonance can add drama to a scene without being overstated. At the beginning of the rape sequence in The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Jerry Fielding begins with a loud piano accent, and then continues with soft strings that almost subliminally play the increasing terror. The harmonic texture is extremely complex, but the soft

On the track

232

dynamic level of the divisi strings helps keep the moment understated. (See Figure 10.12; this excerpt begins at 01:18:17, as the gang turns a piano over and it crashes to the ground.) In Naked Lunch (1991) Howard Shore’s soft orchestral texture for the central character’s realization that he has just shot his wife is another example of the use of soft dissonance (see Figure 14.38). Every example of the “less is more” principle reveals another aspect of this fruitful philosophy. For the last scene of Body Heat (1981), during which Ned Racine (William Hurt) confronts Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner) at the boat house, John Barry used music that was both melodic and melancholy. The score alerts the audience that there is a bomb inside and that Ned FIGURE 10.10 American Beauty (1999)

© 1999 Songs of SKG (BMI). Worldwide Rights for Songs of SKG

Composing

233

Administered by Cherry River Music Co. International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved.

might be aware of it. The tension is sustained without being melodramatic. (See Figure 10.13a; the first excerpt starts at 01:38:36, as Hurt takes a gun out of its case. Later in the same cue, the excerpt in Figure 10.13b begins at 01:39:41 as Ned waits in the dark for Matty.) Another example of restrained scoring accompanies an extremely dramatic moment in Elephant Man (1980), when the title character slowly turns around to reveal his face for the first time (00:14:15). John Morris used only strings, playing the sequence with delicacy and touching simplicity. In Agnes of God, Georges Delerue uses simple materials to achieve very dramatic results. The music shown in Figure 10.14 plays during

On the track

234

the scene that begins with a nun, Mother Miriam Ruth (played by Anne Bancroft) saying, “Let me help you” to Sister Agnes (Meg Tilly). FIGURE 10.11 Pay It Forward (2000)

© 2000 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

235

AVOIDING EMOTION Film music can be so understated it may appear to be avoiding any emotional statement at all. How the listener perceives this type of scoring is subjective, though, and the drama itself may be bringing emotional qualities to the music just as the music is able to bring emotional qualities to the drama. Every now and then you may be working with a filmmaker who does not wish to make any emotional statement with the music. This is a tough situation because the addition of even a single note of music to the film’s soundtrack will begin to imply some sort of emotion. James Newton Howard encountered this when he began working with Scott Hicks on Snow Falling on Cedars (1999). The temp track was a combination of renowned Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki’s music and obscure music performed by the Kronos Quartet. Howard liked the music, but didn’t see any emotional connection with the film. “Any time anything was even remotely commenting on any kind of emotional or sentiment (and I don’t mean in the terms of sentimentality, I mean in human feeling) they had a problem. It just felt like there was a really visible effort on their part to try and be invisible, if you know what I mean, and the music ended up drawing huge amounts of attention to itself by virtue of its oblique quality. So that was really the battle, and in the end I think I convinced them that you can have both. That we could have an austere angular and unexpected score and still play the emotionality of the film and not deprive an audience of what was in the movie and should be experienced. So we eventually worked it out. But it was definitely a tough go.” This gets back to audience expectations. It is not productive to completely ignore the emotional content of most films (there will always be exceptions, of course) because you

On the track

236

will be denying the audience its satisfaction with the experience. (See Figures 14.34 and 20.2 for excerpts from Snow Falling on Cedars.)

DE-EMPHASIZING A SCENE “Most of us are aware of, and do not like, the kind of bad film music that intrudes and italicizes moments that have no need of such emphasis,” the late Jerry Fielding observed. “Few realize, however, the ability of music to de-emphasize. Sometimes you look at a scene and think: This is excessively stated, but could I put some music in here that would tone it down? A composer can have a fairly decisive, if subtle, effect on the emphasis in a picture if they’ll let him.”

THE POWER OF SILENCE You can’t really listen to two things at once. So if you want something on screen to be heard—don’t play. —John Morris

The art of film scoring involves knowing where to put music, and where not to put music. We know this is so in spotting, but even within a cue we sometimes forget that silence can be potent. Thomas Newman comments: “As a composer, you think you have to write something because there you are writing it. Here you are at your studio and here’s a moment in the film— ‘Well, gee, I’ve got to write something here.’ As opposed to saying, ‘Well, gee, what if I just leave it alone, and I don’t do anything? Or if I ignore that moment, and put a 4-beat pause in the music?’ So that rather than turning the corner in a compositional sense you’re allowing the visual to turn a corner, or the dramatic thing to turn a corner, and you’re catching it on the other side. I think you learn that the older you get.” In one of the most touching scenes in The Elephant Man (1980), Mrs. Kendal (Anne Bancroft) is reading “Romeo and Juliet” to the title character. Music starts at 01:08:32. As she slowly leans forward to lightly kiss him, John Morris stops the cue, unresolved— not abruptly, but with a sustained chord as they kiss (01:09:40). After some concluding dialogue, the music re-enters with a final resolution of the cue. No music could have been more powerful than that potently silent moment. Recurring Silence Can Emphasize the Drama Silence can be integrated into the music. We have mentioned the long cues in 48 Hours (1982) and Ghostbusters (1984) that start and stop several times while retaining continuity. In Brainstorm (1983) James Horner uses a recurring motif separated by silence (Figure 10.15) to create a feeling of reflection during a scene in which Karen (Natalie Wood) is alone at home after Mike (Christopher Walken) has played back a

Composing

237

special mind stimulating “tape” of images and emotions from the past (00:43:06). FIGURE 10.12 The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

© 1976 WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

238

You’ll find many interesting uses of silence in the scores of Jerry Goldsmith, including Hollow Man (2000).

PLAYING THROUGH THE DRAMA There are three basic ways to play the drama in any particular instance. You can play through a scene (or a series of scenes), establishing a mood that will ignore specific moments of greater or lesser intensity. You can phrase a scene, carefully acknowledging both obvious and subtle shifts in emotional tone and dramatic content. And you can hit the action, accenting specific moments in the drama with the music. All three of these techniques and their variations may be used in a score, depending on the film’s style and dramatic requirements and the tastes of the composer and director. Playing through is really the earliest film scoring technique, dating back to the presound era of silent movies. In those days the local pianist (or organist) selected different pieces of music for each dramatic section and then simply played through the scene until the next section. In their compilation score for Birth of a Nation (1915) Joseph Carl Breil, working closely with D.W. Griffith, created a prototype for this kind of score that

Composing

239

included classical music, folk music, and other popular standards such as “Dixie.” (Birth of a Nation is available on an Image Entertainment Blackhawk Films Collection DVD.) You can hear this technique applied by Charlie Chaplin with his own original music in sound films such as City Lights (1931). But don’t consider this an old-fashioned technique. It has worked very well through the years, particularly for certain styles of comedy scoring. Playing through the drama became very popular again in the mid- 1980s with the introduction of synthesizers to mainstream scoring, and more recently with intense drama and genre films. With the right drama, it works well with contemporary and electronic materials. FIGURE 10.13 Body Heat (1981)

On the track

240

© 1981 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

241

PHRASING THE DRAMA Most scenes or sequences in a film can be divided (or “phrased”) into two or more segments. Sometimes this phrasing of the drama is fairly obvious, but not always. If a couple is having an innocuous conversation about the day’s activities and then the woman says, “By the way, I’ve got something to tell you. I’m leaving for South America tomorrow for three years,” that’s big news and delineates the scene. What comes next is different from the previous dialogue; the emotional content of their conversation and even their relationship has shifted. If you are phrasing the drama of this scene, you will make a note of this moment so that you can score the next segment of their dialogue differently, somehow reflecting that shift. Now, in this hypothetical scene, if, after more dialogue, the woman picks up a packed suitcase and leaves the house, this moment would define another new dramatic phrase, as the camera stays with the man sitting quietly alone. We have now phrased the drama by organizing this scene into three sections, continuous and connected to each other but different in terms of emotional content and intensity. If you are playing through this scene, you will not acknowledge these changes. If you are phrasing the drama with your score, your music will reflect each of these emotional shifts. The musical material might be the same, and in fact, the entire sequence might be played with one theme. But however it is scored, something in the music will be empathetic to and help to delineate the emotional changes. If the basic musical materials and the theme are the same throughout (that is, these elements don’t phrase the drama) the overall effect may sound as though the score is playing through the drama. The

On the track

242

changes, subtle or not, will also be following the emotional progression of the scene. Emotional shifts can be scored many different ways, all with the same overall effect, which is to respond to the drama on the screen. Even if you were to keep playing your theme throughout the scene, other elements could easily suggest the emotional changes. You might bring in another musical color, either switching from one instrument to another at the new dramatic phrase, or adding or subtracting an instrument or group of instruments. You could intensify the harmony or the rhythmic pulse. There is a middle ground in which the music seems to be playing through while still phrasing the drama in long sections. Henry Mancini did this brilliantly in comedies such as the Pink Panther series and Victor/Victoria (1982) and also in serious dramas. His score for Days of Wine and Roses (1962) illustrates his use of this technique in cues that feature his well-known theme for this movie. Used this way, the score is really phrasing the drama but the flow is so smooth and consistent that the music sounds as though it is simply playing through the drama. (See Figures 11.2 and 11.3 for excerpts from Victor/Victoria.) FIGURE 10.14 Anges of God (1985)

Composing

243

© 1985 Golden Torch Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

HITTING THE ACTION You have to know at what point dramatic music becomes melodramatic. How far can I go in highlighting a moment dramatically before it goes over the top? —Christopher Young

More often than not the note I get is, ‘Don ‘t hit all this stuff, play through it.’ But then when I don’t do that, I get the notes, ‘Why didn’t you hit this?’ —Don Davis

If you provide a musical accent for a specific moment in the drama, you are hitting the

On the track

244

action. It would be unusual to play through the drama and still interject one or more moments when you hit the action, but this could be done and the impression still given that you were playing through, especially if you have integrated the hit into the natural flow of the music. Electronic and contemporary scores sometimes do this, in which case an accent might even be laid in on top of the rhythmic or sequenced material. It is more common to hit certain moments in the action while using the technique of phrasing the drama. Almost all film music from the thirties, forties, and fifties was conceived this way. Sometimes the hit was blatant (and was called a “stinger”). When the camera moves in on a close-up of a newspaper headline, the music accents the moment (as an example you can hear this in Miklós Rózsa’s score for Spellbound [1945], but there are similar instances of this in almost any score by Max Steiner and other composers of that period). This technique is used more organically when a cue begins with an accent to emphasize a moment and then continues along in the same style, possibly with more orchestral accents. Jerry Goldsmith did this very effectively in several cues in Along Came a Spider (2001). In general, this idea is more appropriate with genre films than with intimate dramas, which is why it works so well in a thriller. The more intense and bigger than life the drama is, the more effective the technique of hitting the action. You will find the music hitting the action in places in other genres, including action (The Peacemaker, 1997, Hans Zimmer), science fiction/fantasy (X-Files: FIGURE 10.15 Brainstrom (1983)

Composing

245

© 1983 April Music Inc. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film Co. All rights controlled and administered by April Music Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.

On the track

246

Fight the Future, 1998, Mark Snow), supernatural (The Sixth Sense, 1999, James Newton Howard), animated comedies (Stuart Little 2, 2002, Alan Silvestri), period dramas and swashbucklers (The Count of Monte Cristo, 2002, Edward Shearmur; The Mask of Zorro, 1998, James Horner), and other genres. In John Williams’ score for Harry Potter and the Socerer’s Stone (2001), Williams catches each moment (hits the action) near the beginning of the film when Professor Dumbledore (Richard Harris) magically extinguishes several street lamps. Some specific moments of action are hit harder than others, but all are hit. The cue starts on the fade in to buildings before the WB logo (00:00:02); the excerpt starts at 00:00:52, on Professor Dumbledore as he raises a handheld wand and prepares to use it to extinguish the street lamps (see Figure 10.16). Notice how different the nature of these accents is compared to those in Along Came a Spider. Hitting the action is a device that can be applied differently for different films and situations, sometimes subtly and sometimes more blatantly (see Figures 10.17 and 10.18). Mark Snow increases the level of his soft music to add a slight emphasis to the moment in X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) when the camera reveals a close-up of The Cigarette-Smoking Man (William B. Davis) at 00:334:44, then comes right back down to continue at a softer level for the next scene. This hit is subtle yet significant without being obtrusive. In the supernatural drama The Sixth Sense, James Newton Howard hits several important moments in the drama with accents. Listen for the reveal of the ghosts hanging in the school hallway (00:57:27) and the moment near the end of the film when the ghost of Kyra grabs Cole (Haley Joel Osment) at 01:21:37, and again as we see her at 01:21:40:15 (see Figures 10.19 and 10.20.) American History X (1998) is an extremely intense drama. In her score, Anne Dudley understates the emotional content for the most part, while phrasing the drama and acknowledging emotional high spots. In the Main Title, the flashback shows how Danny

Composing

247

(Edward Furlong) watches Derek (Edward Norton) shoot the two African American teenagers on the street in front of his house, firing on their car as it is driven off by their friends. After the violence, the boys’ choir enters in strong contrast to the footage (see Figure 10.21). It is important to know how the director feels about this technique; you may learn a great deal about his attitude from the temp track. But keep in mind that deciding how much of the action is actually hit is a stylistic and philosophical matter, so if you see that the director is expecting a number of moments to be hit by the music, this may be indicative of his overall wishes for that particular film. “We’re asked to hit every cut and every eyebrow raised these days,” says Graeme Revell, “so you’ve got to find a way to do that without sacrificing musicality. You have to do it all the time.” Don Davis believes that hitting the action may be considered passé, but his experience with filmmakers doesn’t entirely bear this out. The accents can be a very integral part of the music and the drama. In Brainstorm (1983), James Horner accents the stabs of pain Louise Fletcher feels as she succumbs to a heart attack: “There was something about her constantly having these repetitive jabs of pain; as she was trying to make a phone call another jab of pain would hit her, then as she was trying to do something else another jab. It was painful to watch. I didn’t FIGURE 10.16 Harry Potter and the Socerer’s Stone (2001)

On the track

248

© 2001 Warner-Barham Music, LLC (BMI). All rights for Warner-Barham Music, LLC Administered by WarnerTamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

249

On the track

250

Composing

FIGURE 10.17 Along Came Spider (2001)

251

On the track

252

© 2001 by Ensign Music Corporation. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. know exactly how to score a heart attack; I’d never done that sort of thing before. What I wanted to do was try to enhance this quality of painfulness, and her being alone with it, but not in a way that was underscoring so much as the orchestra being part of the actual heart attack—the experience. “I had this very Mahlerian figure, with low trumpets—purposely that color. It just keeps repeating; and it emphasized and became like those jabs of pain. I don’t very often get into text painting like that, but it was a place where I wanted the heart attack to be as powerful as possible.” [The cue starts at 00:54:56; see Figure 10.22.] Hitting the Action with the Theme Danny Elfman hits the action quite a bit in his score for Batman (1989), often using the theme to do so. This is another way to integrate the dramatic accent organically into the score. In one scene, Elfman’s theme begins at the moment at which Batman swings down from above in a warehouse and lands in front of the criminals (00:26:18). By reintroducing the theme at this moment he is hitting the action and also driving the music and the drama forward. There are many other hits in this long cue, incorporated into Elfman’s very detailed score (see Figure 10.23). Integrating these techniques into a score in a smooth and seemingly effortless manner

Composing

253

takes experience. Trevor Rabin began as most composers do. “When I first started doing this I’d set up the tempo map, ‘I’ve got to hit this, okay that’s going to be at 120, okay, but there’s got to be a 7/8 bar before hitting it.’ I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve been doing it a little longer now but those things have become very much more smoothed out and this whole process is much smoother. I just stopped doing that and I find more natural ways of writing the music and then adapting and coming back to things you have to hit. And very often I’ll go back and say, ‘Oh, I missed that, I really should hit that.’”

HIGHLIGHTING If you build to a specific moment, and then stop the music with an accent, you are highlighting that moment. The effect is always one of emphasis, regardless of the film or scene, and the silence FIGURE 10.18 Along Came Spider (2001)

© 2001 by Ensign Music Corporation. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. becomes a final dramatic accent. In effect you are hitting the action with silence. A good example of this technique can be found in Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Along Came a Spider. At 01:15:28 the cue begins on the move-in to a close-up of Jezzie

On the track

254

Flannagan (Monica Potter) passed out on the floor as Soneji (Michael Wincott) repeats, “Where’s Megan?” The music builds to a crescendo and then cuts off just before Alex (Morgan Freeman) shoots Soneji (see Figure 10.24). In American History X, Anne Dudley builds the Main Title music and then cuts off to highlight Derek (Edward Norton) shooting the African American kid. The loud chord cuts off at 00:05:05 (see Figure 10.25). Highlighting is equally effective in comedy, which you can hear in any of the John Morris scores for Mel Brooks’ films (Young Frankenstein and High Anxiety, for instance).

RED HERRINGS Musical red herrings are another form of highlighting, in which the music builds to a climax just before something does or doesn’t happen. This technique plays the drama by building up to silence. Horror, suspense films, and thrillers use this device frequently. Usually a red herring ends with a nonthreatening or comical visual reveal: the noise behind the door is caused by the cat; the strange sounds in the basement become a lonely rat scurrying across the cement floor. A traditional film-scoring device, musical red herrings help to increase tension in genre films and keep the audience on edge. Be careful of overdoing them, however, or the effect will wear out its welcome.

SCORING THE FILM LIKE A BALLET Ang Lee’s martial arts or the movement in this story is like calligraphy—Chinese brush writing—it’s like a ballet. As soon as I saw this I was immediately inspired. —Tan Dun

Rat Race? It’s a madcap comedy. It’s basically just a loud brash flashy very fast score that owes a lot to ballet music. —John Powell

Some directors and composers feel that film can be almost balletic, and compose their music with this in mind. When John Williams described his music for the final scene of Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace (1999) in the film music journal Soundtrack, he found himself responding to the scene in this way: “The choral piece that has to do with the sword fight and comes at the end of the film is a result of my thinking that something ritualistic and/or pagan and antique might be very effective. I just felt the way that George has staged that, on top of that great stairway, the way it’s done is so dramatic and so like a great pagan altar, the whole thing seems like a dance or a ballet, a religious ceremony of some kind, probably ending

Composing

255

FIGURE 10.19 The Sixth Sense (1999)

© 1999 B & B Company. All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 10.20

On the track

256

The Sixth Sense (1999)

© 2002 Touchstone Pictures Music & Songs, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. in the death of one of the combatants, you know? A ballet about that—super-real, or unreal even.”

Composing

257

For Entrapment (1999) Christopher Young took a similar approach to the scene in which Gin (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is practicing threading her way through an intricate maze of red twine devised to simulate laser beams. “We all agreed when we were spotting the movie that, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we turn the thing into a mini ballet because there was such grace in her motions.” This cue was also able to serve the dual purpose of romanticizing the relationship between Mac (Sean Connery) and Gin while bringing them closer together (00:36:50). John Morris has a solid background in the theater: “I was a dance arranger on Broadway, and I wrote for Bob Fosse, Jerome Robbins, Agnes DeMille, Michael Kidd, Gower Champion—all the wonderful choreographers. Whenever I see anything on the screen in which somebody moves and nobody talks, it’s a ballet to me. For instance, in Elephant Man, all the drunken people come to torture him in his room at night. And I said, ‘What I’m looking at is a ballet. Pure ballet. The dialogue doesn’t mean anything.’ So I scored it like a ballet.” He developed his theme from the Main Title in this manner. (This sequence begins at 01:26:33.) In cases like these, the score often plays the dramatic theme or overview of the film.

UNDERSCORING THE DIALOGUE Scoring around the dialogue is real important, to keep the integrity of the music so that you’re not having to carve giant holes in melodic passages to keep the dialogue clear. —Rick Kline, Music Recording Mixer

To support the drama without killing the dialogue—that’s the challenge. Some classic guidelines for dialogue underscoring are: 1. Voice-overs are more difficult to understand When the audience can see the lips of the person speaking they can understand the words more easily (because of the chance to lip-read). Conversely, voice-overs, group dialogue, or narration where moving lips are not visible require more caution in underscoring. 2. Smooth musical textures are less intrusive Speaking has an articulated texture that stands out better against smooth, legato instrumental textures that do not contain other elements of distraction like large melodic skips, or accents. 3. Keep underscoring out of the voice range In Dragonslayer (1981), the late Alex North had to underscore action scenes with the dragon and the girl being chased, without hurting the dialogue: “This may be old hat but

On the track

258

it’s a question of orchestrating it out of the vocal range of the dialogue. With Orson Welles—doing Sound and the Fury [1959]—I avoided using bass clarinet and low instruments so they would not conflict with his voice range.” However, the technique of clearing the speaking voice range does not always work. In the television documentary Ladybird Johnson’s Visit to Washington, D.C. (1964, Wright), the narration FIGURE 10.21 American History X (1998)

© 1998 New Line Tunes (ASCAP). Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Composing

259

is continuous as Mrs. Johnson talks about Washington’s historic buildings and parks. The first lady had been coached to read her lines in a breathy, feminine voice, and the recording was done in documentary style, mostly outdoors with wind and outdoor ambience. Music was clearly needed. The music was scored out of her voice range and was smooth in texture to avoid distracting from her voice. Everybody loved the music at the recording sessions, but when it was played back under her voice she was hard to understand; her voice was so breathy it didn’t have any resonance. As it turned out, she actually needed some support in her speaking range to give body to her voice, so the rewrite incorporated low G-string violins, French horns, and low flutes, all in her voice range, and it immediately worked. Her voice seemed to take on the body of the supporting instruments. 4. Accents and solos can be distracting

On the track

260

North avoided as much as possible any accents in the music, and any solo instruments, when underscoring dialogue. He believed that solos “take your mind away from the words, and with solos you’re aware of the single instrument.” Mellow solos like alto flute and single-note piano can work well under diaFIGURE 10.22 Brainstrom (1993)

Composing

261

© 1983 April Music Inc. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film Co. All rights controlled and administered by April Music Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

FIGURE 10.23 Batman (1989)

© 1989 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission. logue, but should be mixed softer than they might otherwise be. Beware of obtrusive sounds such as high trumpet solos.

On the track

262

5. Avoid extreme highs and lows Such sounds are intrusive, as are percussive sounds and staccato textures. Experienced sound mixers agree. “No piccolos, or anything really loud under dialogue,” suggests recording engineer Dan Wallin. Dubbing mixer Don MacDougall finds that “high woodwinds (piccolo, flute, clarinet) are very difficult with quiet scenes, and brass— things that are percussive. French horns work beautifully. Oboe and English horn are wonderful.” 6. Don’t overwrite Music that is too demanding to listen to will distract the audience. Keep it relatively simple. This doesn’t mean it cannot be interesting or even musically sophisticated. Music can have integrity and still work properly under dialogue. It can be mixed so that an element like a solo oboe is tucked back into the FIGURE 10.24 Along Came a Spider (2001)

© 2001 by Ensign Music Corporation. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. FIGURE 10.25 American History X (1998)

Composing

263

© 1998 New Line Tunes (ASCAP). Used by permission. All rights reserved. FIGURE 10.26 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

On the track

264

© 1982 by Famous Music Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission. mix so it doesn’t stick out. “Of course, when you add all the backgrounds, the atmosphere, the dialogue, the mix changes,” says Rick Kline. “You can achieve a similar sonic feel of musical balance by manipulating to balance with those elements.” Recording engineer Robert Fernandez suggests avoiding percussive elements behind dialogue. “That really gets in the way. If there’s important dialogue that needs to be heard, it’s nice just to stay out of the way by keeping the percussive stuff down and trying to write around the dialogue rather than just writing straight through.” Note the effective examples of underscoring in Figures 10.26 and 10.27. (The Star

Composing

265

Trek II [1982] cue begins at 00:18:14; the FIGURE 10.27 Return of the Jedi (1983)

© 1983 Bantha Music. All rights on behalf of Bantha Music administered by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

266

excerpt at 00:18:17.) Even solo trumpet can work under dialogue, if used with sensitivity. Listen to the start of the cue in Return of the Jedi (1983) when Princess Leia and Luke talk about their family (01:17:23 from the Fox logo on the videocassette). Figure 10.27 illustrates how John Williams plays the remainder of this scene under their dialogue (the excerpt begins at 01:18:30).

SCORES FOR STUDY The reader is urged to study on DVD or videocassette the illustrations cited in this chapter, some of which are listed below, as well as these further examples of the principles discussed. All timings cited are those on the DVD when released on that medium. The first number indicates the lapsed time in hours, the second the minutes, and

Composing

267

the third seconds. Approximate timings are included for films only available on videocassette as of this writing, and are so indicated. Don’t Tip the Story Road to Perdition (2002, Thomas Newman). See how Newman scored the scene in which Hanks (Michael) returns to his house and finds his wife and youngest son murdered, while his older son, Michael Jr. is hiding (00:41:05 from the start of the Dream Works logo).

Tone The following films raise issues of tone, as do many others you will see. As you watch a film, imagine a hypothetical dialogue about the appropriate tone for that film and various scenes within the film. Ask yourself in what way the score established that tone. Antz (1998, John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams). Consider Powell’s comments about tone on pages 130–131, and view the scene he refers to as “the big shoe” scene

On the track

268

(00:51:27), described as a rewrite to make the scene lighter in tone. See Powell and Gregson-Williams’ description of this issue on page 131. Bandits (2002, Christopher Young). Three eccentric yet endearing characters on a bank robbery spree. The use of country instruments keeps it light and whimsical. (See Figure 21.3.) Harry Potter and the Socerer’s Stone (2001, John Williams). Look at the scene in which Harry and Ronald fight the Troll, beginning at 01:09:05. This cue starts as everyone exits the dining hall after Prof. Dumbledore (Richard Harris) has given them instructions. The confrontation with the Troll begins at 01:10:15. Shrek (2001, John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams). The first dragon chase was rewritten to lighten the tone, making it less frightening for children (00:33:12 and 00:38:26). Main Titles Agnes of God (1985, Georges Delerue). This music establishes the possibilities of the drama to come, a frequent requirement of Main Title music. (See Figure 10.2.) The Silence of the Lambs (1991, Howard Shore). The music in this Main Title is much more somber and disturbing than what is seen on screen. It is letting us know what the film will be, rather than describing what we are seeing (see Figure 10.1). Whose Point of View to Play? Nine to Five (1980, Charles Fox). A comedy, but sometimes a black comedy. Look at the hospital scene described by Fox on page 134, in which the three women “steal” a gurney, believing Violet’s (Lily Tomlin’s) dead boss to be on it (see Figure 10.3). Playing the Overview Glory (1989, James Horner). Horner’s score is an overview score, playing the innocence and courage of the soldiers. Listen to the long cue that begins with solo French horn at 01:36:32 as Shaw (Matthew Broderick) and his soldiers prepare for battle and then march to the beach. The music plays the overview even as it builds emotionally. Playing What the Scene Is Really About Braveheart (1995, James Horner). This music sometimes scores the subtext of the sequence, the emotion beneath the surface, the real story. During the big battle scene at approximately 2 hours and 4 minutes, the music plays the gravity of the situation, not the action. That’s Life! (1986, Henry Mancini). Gillian (Julie Andrews) sits pensively during a family dinner. Gradually the dialogue diminishes in volume and Mancini’s music takes over (00:45:52 from the Vestron logo on the videocassette), playing Gillian’s mood and feelings rather than the group’s chatter. Her family is oblivious to her anxiety, but the audience knows she is waiting for biopsy results, painfully worried about the possibility

Composing

269

of a malignant tumor. Unbreakable (2000, James Newton Howard). The score plays what is really going on in the scene when David (Bruce Willis) is in his weight room, ultimately lifting about 350 pounds. This music plays the spirituality of the scene, not the difficulty of lifting that much weight (00:47:13). The Way We Were (1973, Marvin Hamlisch). During a classroom scene in which the teacher reads Hubbell Gardiner’s (Robert Redford’s) short story, Hamlisch’s music expresses Katie’s (Barbra Streisand’s) growing admiration for Hubbell. As the teacher’s voice fades out, the music plays Katie and her emotions (00:17:35). Getting Inside the Character’s Feelings Scarface (1983, Giorgio Moroder). This electronic score contains several cues that get inside Tony’s (Al Pacino’s) head as he watches his sister dance with a stranger. His tension is mirrored in the score, which plays his feelings of jealousy and protectiveness. Notice that in some cases the sound effects and dialogue gradually fade out, allowing the music full play. (01:17:31 from the start of the Universal logo on the videocassette; and 01:23:49.) How Intensely to Play the Drama A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001, John Williams). Williams scores this film with great restraint and quiet intensity. A good example is the cue at 00:23:51 after Monica (Frances O’Connor) imprints David (Haley Joel Osment) with a special code that will bond him to her forever (Figure 10.6). As emotional as this moment is, the music continues with no increase in volume, change of texture, or intensity. Other cues play the drama more intensely: an example is the cue at 00:46:25 as Monica drives David to the country in order to abandon him. The score gets more intense as she tries to leave, and crescendos as she drives away. By contrast, the trash pickers and flesh fair sequences are musically much more intense. A Beautiful Mind (2001, James Horner). For the last scene in the film, Horner’s score builds in emotion from the moment just after the first professor puts his pen on the table by John Nash (Russell Crowe) at 02:04:01, through this scene and then Nash’s acceptance of the Nobel prize (this cue starts at 02:05:42). Chocolat (2000, Rachel Portman). This score understates the emotional moments and yet plays the drama with empathy. A life-threatening fire is played without much intensity, and when Vianne’s (Juliette Binoche’s) daughter is not injured, the music does not play the moment with intensity. This sequence begins at 01:28:27 as she starts to run toward the fire. Hollow Man (2000, Jerry Goldsmith). The nature of this film allows for a much more intense score during appropriate moments. One such moment is when Sebastian (Kevin Bacon) again becomes visible at 00:47:00. Less Is More/Understating the Drama

On the track

270

American Beauty (1999, Thomas Newman). One of many examples of Newman’s understatement in this score begins at 01:01:53 after Ricky (Wes Bentley) says to Jane (Thora Birch), “You want to see the most beautiful thing I’ve ever filmed?” as they watch his video of a bag floating in the wind. Note the addition of only very soft cellos as the two kiss, and subsequently the cello line descending a fourth adding an additional slight emphasis as their kiss becomes more intense. (See Figure 10.10, which begins at 01:03:57 after Ricky says to Jane, “Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it.”) The Gift (2000, Christopher Young). Young’s score is at times extremely understated, featuring solo fiddle and sparse orchestration. Listen to the moment Donnie (Keanu Reeves) returns to Annie’s (Cate Blanchett’s) house at 00:16:47 (see Figure 10.7). The music responds to the drama within a very circumscribed emotional frame. A short while later this same material, further developed, plays a scene with escalated emotions and violence, as Donnie bursts into Annie’s house to get his wife (Hilary Swank). The Insider (1999, Pieter Bourke, Lisa Gerrard, plus additional music). The overall feel of this soundtrack, one of subtlety and understatement, is very effective. Even the use of the music on the soundtrack (accomplished in dubbing) is often nearly subliminal (see Figure 21.18). K-PAX (2001, Edward Shearmur). In general, Shearmur’s score for this psychological drama with a science fiction subtext is understated. You will hear this throughout, yet again, within the emotional framework the composer has chosen, he does play the emotion. Listen to the cue that starts at 00:40:16 on Dr. Powell (Jeff Bridges) after Probt (Kevin Spacey) says, “My pleasure,” and begins to draw the orbital pattern the planet KPAX takes through the Constellation Lyra (see Figure 10.9). In this cue the orchestra builds as we wait for Probt’s orbital pattern to be superimposed on the scientist’s rendering. Pay It Forward (2000, Thomas Newman). Listen especially to the final cue of the film, after Trevor (Haley Joel Osment) is stabbed, beginning at 01:52:41. (The excerpt illustrated in Figure 10.11 begins at 01:52:47 during a C.U. of Trevor.) The Power of Silence Along Came a Spider (2001, Jerry Goldsmith). Goldsmith integrates silence into his cues with fine dramatic effect. During the cue in which the cop is shot (beginning at 00:55:13), music stops for 8 seconds (4 bars) as Alex and Jezzie are staked out in their car and Alex says, “Go on Jezzie—have one.” Music stops at 00:55:48 and continues again at 00:55:56. Later in the film, there is silence built into the cue that starts at 01:03:09 after someone says to the investigative group, “Clock’s ticking, people, let’s move this downtown,” on the kidnapped girl’s parent’s embrace. The written 4 bars of silence (:10) in the music begins at 01:06:09 as the telephone rings in the phone booth. Music continues at 01:06:19. Just after this, music stops at 01:07:35 as Alex picks up the phone—we hear the dial tone in the clear and then the music starts again at 01:07:47. Playing Through the Drama and Phrasing the Drama

Composing

271

Select any film of your choice, new or old, one you have seen or perhaps wanted to see, and make notes on when the score plays through the drama and when it phrases the drama. Many scores will use different dramatic techniques during the course of an entire film, sometimes in close proximity. Decide whether more or less phrasing would have been beneficial to the film. Hitting the Action Along Came a Spider (2001, Jerry Goldsmith). Goldsmith uses occasional loud accents throughout the score. • At 00:09:11.5 there is an orchestral accent as Soneji (Michael Wincott) grabs the schoolgirl, Megan, and another accent at 00:09:51 when he grabs the teacher. The cue continues as Soneji leaves (see Figure 10.17). • The cue that starts at 00:55:13 on the cut to Dimitri on the move after a policeman in his patrol car pulls up to Alex (Morgan Freeman) and agent Flannagan (Monica Potter) who are staked out in their car and asks, “What’s the problem?” When the cop is shot, Goldsmith hits the action with intense accents (see Figure 10.18). • The cue that segues from another cue at 01:08:00, as Alex races from a telephone booth to the train. After Alex shoots through the glass of a train window to throw out the ransom money, Goldsmith hits the action as Alex throws the ransom out the window. The Sixth Sense (1999, James Newton Howard). Look for the reveal of the ghosts hanging in the school hallway (00:57:27); the moment at 01:21:37 when the ghost of Kyra grabs Cole (Haley Joel Osment); and again when we see her at 01:21:40:15 (see Figures 10.19 and 10.20). Highlighting Along Came a Spider (2001, Jerry Goldsmith). See the cue starting at 01:26:18 when Flannagan (Monica Potter) shoots Devine, as Alex (Morgan Freeman) enters the room. The music builds to a cut off at the moment Alex kicks the door open. American History X (1998, Anne Dudley). The Main Title builds to a cut off to highlight Derek (Edward Norton) shooting the African American kid. The loud chord cuts off at 00:05:05 (see Figure 10.25). The Sixth Sense (1999, James Newton Howard). Music builds to an accent and silence on the reveal of Kyra at 01:17:31, ending the cue. Another similar moment occurs as the tent begins to rip open at 01:16:19, and following that on the cut to Kyra. Red Herrings Don’t Say a Word (2001, Mark Isham). As Dr. Conrad searches playfully for his daughter the music builds in volume and tension to reveal her in the closet (this red herring ends at 00:21:27). At 01:18:00 the music builds to a body under a blanket, but not the one we expect. Foul Play (1978, Charles Fox). Fox scores a long buildup to a red herring as Gloria

On the track

272

(Goldie Hawn) returns to her apartment (00:36:52 from the Paramount logo on the videocassette), walking slowly through it in fear someone might be hiding inside. The music builds to a climax as she pulls back the shower curtain to reveal nothing. A moment later, she is attacked. What Lies Beneath (Alan Silvestri, 2000). This thriller has a good example of a musical red herring when Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer) is looking through binoculars (00:33:15). The music builds and then she discovers the person she sees is actually her husband (Harrison Ford). Scoring the Film Like a Ballet Edward Scissorhands (1990, Danny Elfman). At 01:15:45 a cue starts as Kim (Winona Ryder), who has been trimming the Christmas tree with her mother, moves away from the tree and looks outside, where Edward (Johnny Depp) is sculpting an ice figure. Underscoring Dialogue The American President (1995, Marc Shaiman). An example of Shaiman’s scoring under dialogue begins at 01:40:53 during his speech to the press, after he says, “I’ve known Bob Rumson for years.” At 01:46:43 he uses a soft gentle version of his romantic theme to play the dialogue, after a TV commentator says, over an exterior night shot of the Capitol Dome, “What kind of last-minute activity is the president engaged in?” Grand Canyon (1991, James Newton Howard). In his score for this film, Howard uses contemporary materials throughout. You can hear how this works under the dialogue at 01:53:45 as Simon (Danny Glover) and his son Otis (Patrick Malone) talk. The soft hand percussion does not at all interfere with the dialogue. The Patriot (2000, John Williams). Listen to Williams’ sensitive handling of music under dialogue during the sequence where Martin (Mel Gibson) tells his son (Heath Ledger) about the incident at Fort Wilderness (01:23:47). Return of the Jedi (1983, John Williams). His scoring of a dialogue scene between Luke and Princess Leia is illustrated in Figure 10.27 (01:18:30 from the Fox logo on the videocassette).

Composing

273

11 GENRES AND SOURCE Music GENRES You recognize as a “Hollywood composer” there are going to be times when the demands of the film supersede anything that you might want to do artistically. —Edward Shearmur

Just because it’s a thriller of some sort it doesn’t have to go “bang, bang” right off the beginning. —Jerry Goldsmith

There are certain cues where you just give up in a way, you know it has to be blast off and let’s just load it up and go crazy. —Mark Snow

Genre films create certain audience expectations. If you watch a Western or action film, you know something about the film before you see it, and are waiting for the moment of the final shootout, the big chase, or sky-filling explosion. To fulfill those expectations the music must acknowledge these moments in such a way that the audience will not sense there is something missing from the drama. This being the case, composers often wonder how they can bring any sort of personality or unique point of view to a genre film. Their first question should be: Just how much of a genre film is it? Some films might appear to be genre films, but they are different from the rest in some important aspect. Basic Instinct (1992) is not just another film noir, although it has elements of that genre in it. Because the film’s impact has so much to do with its erotic content and the psychological mystery factors, Jerry Goldsmith was able to bring to it a very unique concept, one that emphasized those dramatic elements in his score. Unbreakable (2000) might have been a genre film dramatizing the struggle between good and evil, but wasn’t written and directed with that intention by M. Night Shyamalan, and so James Newton Howard, responding to the film rather than a genre, wrote few “action” cues for it. Before defining a film as a particular genre, study it to determine if there is an overview dramatic theme that supersedes the genre. Don’t assume that it is a genre film just because it has a historical subject. Randy Edelman scored the overview for the civil

On the track

274

war drama Gettysburg (1993), creating noble long-lined cues that play through many of the battle scenes.

ACTION The process is one of great fortitude, discipline, and working on loud raucous music when your soul is speaking to you about something soft and poetic. —James Newton Howard

Tastes change, as do the mainstream approaches to scoring genre films. John Williams redefined science fiction/fantasy scores in the 1970s with his scores for Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars. Hans Zimmer added new colors and emphasis to action film scoring with electronics, driving percussion, and guitars, beginning with one of his early films, Black Rain (1989). Zimmer recalls, “At the time, I remember, the producers really didn’t like what I was doing because it didn’t fall into the genre. It wasn’t Die Hard or whatever. And I didn’t know how to write that. So I nearly got fired. Of course then we finish the movie and the next thing you know, ‘Oh, this is a very unusual new way.’ So the next thing that happens is now I think, ‘Well, now I know how to do them, but everyone was basically copying that style.’ On Crimson Title [1995], I then tried to reinvent it.” Of course, all action scores should not sound the same. It is only the dramatic elements of the genre that will be consistent, such as strong propulsive rhythms. There is great room for creativity in deciding exactly what the rhythmic figures will be, and what instruments will play those rhythms. In his initial discussions with Jerry Goldsmith about the musical approach for The Sum of All Fears (2002), director Phil Alden Robinson stressed to the composer his desire to hear something different than the usual. “I started by talking about what I didn’t want, which was that I didn’t want just another action score. I wanted something that took a left-field approach and came around some unexpected ways, and I thought that Jerry, because he’s so knowledgeable, could find ways to deliver the action and the tension without falling back on the things we hear in so many action films.” This is precisely the challenge: it is best to deliver the action and tension that the drama requires, but in an unique, individual way. James Newton Howard cautions composers to carefully craft their scores to accommodate the huge sound effects that may appear on the soundtrack. “You have to know that in a big action sequence a lot of the detail is going to be wiped out—you’re really going to be left with hearing the edges, meaning the highest and lowest frequencies. You try and orchestrate it carefully so that a lot of brass, the trumpets or the higher winds are carrying more thematic material. You’ve really got to be careful about detailed percussion stuff. I try to keep the percussion very much in the lower frequencies so it’s something you can feel as opposed to really hear. It’s a kind of pulse you can feel in your sternum. That seemed to work very well [on Vertical Limit, 2000].”

Composing

275

COMEDY Comedy needs a little bit of bittersweet behind it to make it funnier and more human. —Craig Safan

In comedy, playing the music seriously helps the ridiculousness of the character. —Elmer Bernstein

Despite the intuitive nature of comedy, the composer who is scoring a humorous film must probe the director’s concept for the proper approach to take. Is it broad humor that should be supported with broad musical comments, jokes, quotes of other film music or concert music, or surprises (Silent Movie, 1976; Nine to Five, 1980; Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, 1986)? Or is it funny by virtue of absurd contextual relationships where the music must be seriously straight, providing an ironic contrast to the images on screen (The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!, 1966; Love at First Bite, 1979; Airplane!, 1980)? Is it a story with real danger, jeopardy, serious situations against which the humor erupts (Prizzi’s Honor, 1985; M*A*S*H, 1970; Sleuth, 1972; Foul Play, 1978)? Is it a hard-driving fast-paced adventure with thrills and fun, with music that underscores the sense of suspense and action (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 1984; Romancing the Stone, 1984; Ghostbusters, 1984)? Or is it a film with such strong comedy projection that the music acts as background without comment (The Return of the Pink Panther, 1975)? The music should have character yet not overwhelm the film, even in a comedy. This requirement necessitates an understanding of the music’s function. In Stuart Little (1999) and Stuart Little 2 (2002), Alan Silvestri plays both the comedy (sometimes broadly) and the sentiment (always sincerely). Because the title character is an animated mouse, it doesn’t seem at all inappropriate to hit the action when needed. Here are four examples in scenes from Stuart Little: as his prospective parents lean back in their seats after watching the kids in the orphanage play, emphasized with a trombone gliss (00:02:27); when Stuart leans on a globe and falls down (00:04:03); when all the Little relatives meet Stuart, there is a snare drum roll and then descending strings as the camera pans down to Stuart (00:18:06); and an accent off to end a cue as Stuart lands in the middle of a toy village (00:27:25). Sometimes it works to play the humor broadly, but it depends upon the film and the situation. Chicken Run (2000) is entirely animated with many comic moments that are cartoon-related in that they are beyond reality. As composer John Powell says, “When the Scottish character comes in, then yes, a couple of times we get out the bagpipes. But only if it’s funny.” In such instances music is commenting on the dramatic situation, which is much more difficult to make work with live action.

On the track

276

In Romancing the Stone, Alan Silvestri didn’t play the seriousness of many situations in which the characters were in jeopardy. “That was the original concept,” says Silvestri. “The whole time the Bronco chase is happening, Douglas and Turner are in the cab of the truck joking around. That’s where all the comedy comes from. These crazy soldiers are firing away at them and they’re completely scared, and Juan, the driver, is giving them a tour of the city, telling them where he was born, just like it was an everyday deal. So the music played to that.” (This cue starts at 01:02:05.) Charles Bernstein describes his music for Love at First Bite (1979) as “Romanian romantic/nostalgic. And the juxtaposition of that very serious heart-tugging Romanian music with the absurd, anachronistic count, I think creates humor just by its juxtaposition. That was our choice—not to be funny musically, but let the film be funny and let the music be the background against which that humor could operate.” Elmer Bernstein’s approach for Ghostbusters (1984) was similar: “Ivan Reitman and I talked endlessly. We made the decision that the spooky people, the ghosts, would be played straight; that fear was awesome. And that the three guys, the Ghostbusters themselves, would be played in a much lighter and airier manner. The music that I wrote doesn’t ever make any attempt to make jokes actually.” The difference between Bernstein’s approaches to comedy and drama is one of emphasis: “If it were a serious drama, I probably would have backed off a bit in terms of the sheer power of some of the things that are in Ghostbusters. In general, I would let the music be a little more exaggerated in a comedy than in a serious drama.” References to other music and film scores, and contextual absurdities are two effective devices. The use of musical quotes in comedies was influenced by Airplane! (1980). “In Airplane!” Bernstein notes, “I definitely made reference by style to very old film scoring. It was meant to be serious, but ‘great big’ serious. I made a lot of jokes in that film, but the jokes are made through serious scoring. For instance, toward the end of the film there’s a love theme with chorus. I keep modulating up, up, up, until the chorus can’t do it anymore and they sort of choke, which of course in itself is a joke. I used, for instance, the Notre Dame football fight song at one point, played absolutely seriously, but it’s a joke in the context of what is happening in the film.” Randy Edelman plays the romantic meeting between the two dogs in Beethoven’s 2nd (1993) seriously (00:08:30), similarly to Bernstein’s approach to the love scene on the beach in Airplane! (1980). In general he doesn’t hit the action. The sentiment is played sincerely, contrasting the musical sound of reality with what we are seeing. In the films of writer-director John Hughes there are frequent musical quotes and references to well-known music. These quotes are intended to make a broad comedic comment. When Ferris Bueller comes into the kitchen dressed to kill and says, “Bueller—Ferris Bueller,” Ira Newborn’s music reminds us of the way John Barry has scored similar moments in James Bond films. He announces his name with hard-hitting brass accents interjected in between “Bueller” and “Ferris Bueller” and then ends with an accent. In Hughes’s Weird Science (1985) the film begins with Newborn’s paraphrase of the main theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, from Richard Strauss’ Also spracht Zarathustra). In Sixteen Candles (1984) when the nerd walks down the bus aisle to ask the pretty girl for a date he is accompanied by the Dragnet theme. Ira Newborn explains that this had been temped in by Hughes by the time they spotted the film: “He just liked

Composing

277

that idea. He probably thought of that right from the beginning. The little kid is a nerd, so you play something gigantically overblown and suave, which is probably the way the kid sees himself. In that case he temp-dubbed it in. Other times, since I know that style of humor quite well, I will suggest certain things.” Familiar styles of music can be a successful point of departure for comedy. “I felt Clue (1985) should have a big orchestra,” says John Morris, “something that gave it a lot of size.” In the middle of the film there is a long explanation by the butler of the circumstances of the murder that has taken place that night in the old mansion. “The butler scene was a problem, because what he was doing was a tour de force, and without music it was terrible. You know it’s going to be scored when you look at it, but you still have to figure out how to do it—that’s the trick.” Morris solved the problem by composing a vaudevillian accompaniment to this lengthy sequence, consequently playing the butler’s exposition of the crime as a theatrical performance. (This cue begins at 01:08:00; the excerpt begins at 01:08:24.5, after Wadsworth, the butler, says “Then I hurried across to the kitchen.”) The musical quote and vaudevillian theatricality are broad approaches to comedy; they work well when the film supports it. Obvious caricature also has its place. Referring to The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming! (1966), Johnny Mandel says, “I decided to just go with the very broad comedy of the picture, and in this case there was no such thing as being subtle. The Russians were Russian and you used Russian instruments, and the Americans were ‘Yankee Doodle’ and it was that simple. The only music that departed from that was when you had a little comedy or you had a little love scene. The dramatic scoring was almost silent movie-ish. You overdo it, some of it is just camp.” Songs can make an excellent contribution to comedy, potentially bringing life, warmth, and a “good time” feeling to a comedic sequence. They are especially useful if the film can take a pop or contemporary musical statement, and in the mid-1980s more films, like Ghostbusters and Beverly Hills Cop (both released in 1984), began using songs for that purpose. Songs need some open space on the soundtrack to work most effectively, uninhibited by dialogue and loud effects. Unless they are custom designed to fit a brief moment, they often sound forced in short cues. Most often songs in these films are licensed by the producers, or in some cases, written specifically for the film (very infrequently by the composer of the score). More often than not, by the time the composer of the score is at work, the director will have already selected those moments in his films that are to have songs on the soundtrack, and will have selected the songs or be actively looking for them with the help of his film editor, the music editor, and the music supervisor.

DOCUMENTARIES How should a composer differentiate between the scoring of a documentary, a docudrama (a dramatized version of a true story, like Black Hawk Down [2001, Hans Zimmer] or The Hurricane [1999, Christopher Young]), and a fictional story set in an historical period or an ethnic/geographical context (Gladiator, 2000, Hans Zimmer and Lisa

On the track

278

Gerrard)? Depending on the film, the treatment of docudramas may be no different than purely fictional stories set in historical or ethnic/geographic settings, while true documentaries have a noticeably different stylistic treatment. The more a docudrama leans toward a pure documentary approach, the more it will be scored like a documentary, often with an emphasis on sparseness and cold reality. Don’t assume that docudramas are necessarily any less dramatic than fictional films; it depends on the intention of the writer and director. Dramas based on true events, such as Michael Collins (1996, Elliot Goldenthal) may be intensely dramatic. Peter Nashel scored Report from Ground Zero, a documentary about the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, September 11, 2001. “I realized with this film that if the music was too on-the-nose, it was going to hit a Hallmark moment every five seconds and would actually push people away. You don’t need to heighten it. You don’t need big strings or pounding drums—listen to what the people are saying. The music is almost there as an atmospheric, to help you pace through the stories and transition from one to the next without really suggesting too much how you should feel. You get all that from the interviews. That’s really the difference between fiction and documentary: when you work on a feature you’re trying to inject the emotional element, helping to bring characters to life. You don’t need that in a documentary. You’re adding structural integrity, not emotion.” Gerald Fried explains that it is a matter of perspective. “In a feature or a TV series or a thematic show, where a grizzly bear is shown attacking, I would probably think of ways to get as much terror into the music as possible. In a documentary I would go more for the balance of nature. When we’re around a grizzly, for example, we are second on the food chain, and I would be more matter-of-fact about it even though there is some terror. I would keep it more impersonal, larger. The rhythms, the hidden agenda, are based on a larger scale, a larger rhythm. If there’s motion on the screen, with something chasing something, I probably would go for the natural turnover of events. It seems to be a more calm, serene, contemplative approach.” In documentaries that deal with countries, cities, or eras, or that reveal a large perspective, the standard treatment is to use almost constant music behind the omniscient narrator (at least in any place where sound effects are not self-sufficient), whereas documentaries dealing with singular events or people are often more effective using only sync-sound live music, appropriate source music-like songs, or no music, rather than using any underscore. The late director James Goldstone describes making the 1981 television movie Kent State, a dramatization, not a documentary. “I had grave questions in terms of what music would be scored for this three-hour film. I knew we would use a lot of the popular music of that time, and indeed the picture was written and conceived to use two very famous Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young songs: ‘Teach Your Children,’ and ‘Four Dead in Ohio.’ Because of the tradition of film music, I hired a composer. We tried to unify the score so that what he composed would effectively sound like source music. That is to say, it would not be laid on top of the film or support from underneath the film, but work into the aural texture of the film. As I dubbed the picture I tried playing the scenes without the music (much as I liked it). I dropped about 92 percent of the music he had done because in each instance where we would put the music in, we lost the ‘documentary’ flavor of

Composing

279

the film. It began to sound like we were trying to tell the audience something rather than immerse them in something that was really happening. Now that is a very special case because there I was trying to duplicate reality.” In documentaries there may be no script, but simply a conceptual story line based on research of that subject. The structure and editing is then opportunistic, taking advantage of beautiful camera shots and chance action that occurs. Assembling the film can be instinctive and artistic rather than preplanned to be expository and storytelling. This puts the music in the position of unifying many different sequences of shots, while simultaneously delineating and giving form to what sometimes comes across in documentaries as a rather nondramatic, evenly stressed series of scenes. At best, successful scoring turns documentary footage into meaningful and varied sequences. One approach for the composer is to take the point of view that he is creating a kind of ballet music to accompany these “dancing” abstract images; this can add a dimension to the film beyond the scope of the narration.

HISTORICAL AND PERIOD I try to make it so it’s today’s music but has a tinge, a flavor, of the period music as well. And that’s not easy—I work hard at it. —Alex North

Films that take place in the past are called period films. Gone with the Wind (1939) is a period film; so are Ragtime (1981), How the West Was Won (1962), Out of Africa (1985), and Road to Perdition (2002). Casablanca was not considered a period film; at the time it was released in 1942 it was a contemporary wartime drama. Although period films often use much authentic music from the period as source music, they are not usually about that period. The dramatic theme of the film is not about the period itself, but the people and the circumstances happening within that period. Therefore the chief emotional statement of a period score is not necessarily hooked into the period. Nonetheless, the period can definitely flavor the score and can exert a strong influence on the composer’s musical choices. It is easy to think of historical or period films that are scored using the basic musical language of the film’s dramatic setting. Elements of the music from the period are adapted by the composer for use in his dramatic score: mid-nineteenth century for Thomas Newman’s Little Women (1994) and Rachel Portman’s Emma (1996), for instance, or sixteenth-century Europe for Shakespeare’s Henry V (1945, with music by William Walton; 1989, with music by Patrick Doyle). There are similarities and differences between the latter two scores, with both drawing upon the sound and harmonic essence of the music of the period, while Doyle’s score is much more intense in playing the drama. For a film set in 1183, listen to John Barry’s score for The Lion in Winter (1968), which suggests both the sacred and secular music of the Middle Ages integrated with a twentieth-century concert music harmonic vocabulary. The precedent and expectation in this genre is to incorporate musical elements of the

On the track

280

period and yet to score the film true to its dramatic core. The scores for Glory (1989, James Horner) and Gettysburg (1993, Randy Edelman) both acknowledge the Civil War, and both respond to the films with music that expresses their dramatic theme. John Williams does the same with his score for The Patriot (2000), a film about the American Revolution. David Newman’s period-influenced score for The Affair of the Necklace (2001), while largely drawing upon the eighteenth-century musical language, contrasts that idiom by juxtaposing the more contemporary sound of Alanis Morissette and Salif Ketia’s performance of “Movement I: Mercy” by Morissette and Jonathan Elias within the Main Title (see Figure 11.1 for Newman’s score which preceeds the vocals). Thomas Newman scored Road to Perdition (2002) without referencing a thirties sense of period within the score itself, relying instead upon source music to establish the time frame. You will hear the occasional solo clarinet line within his score with its subtle suggestion of the thirties; the same music written for flute or oboe would not have alluded to the period. In his score for Victor/Victoria (1982) Henry Mancini used a bluesy twenties/thirties feel for the scene where King (James Garner) is impotent in bed with Norma (Lesley Ann Warren). The style gives an appropriate lightness to the scene and reinforces the period (see Figure 11.2; the cue starts at 00:58:08, and the excerpt at 00:58:50). Then, during the long sequence where King sneaks into the “Count’s” (Julie Andrews’s) room to see if he is a man or a woman, Mancini elaborates on the same material. In Figure 11.3 the interpolation of a piano solo influenced by jazz great Bix Beiderbecke illustrates the effective use of the period style once it is established (the cue begins at 01:08:43 as King hangs up the phone, the excerpt begins at 01:09:58 as a housekeeper looks into an empty bathroom). Period music, then, often supports the era of a film or a flashback within a film. It can even support the chronological development of musical style to indicate the passage of time, a concept that was developed fully by Gerald Fried in the miniseries Roots: The Next Generation (1979). He changed his Main Title treatment for each episode, matching the styles to the decades as they progressed, starting with the original AfroAmerican, working up through ragtime, blues, big-band jazz, up to the present. Each era had authentic instrumentation. For the post-Civil War music, for example, Fried says, “We used harmonica of course, but we used more fiddle, since that was a major instrument in the antebellum South.” It is not always necessary to use strong period flavor to match the music to the time and place. In Dragonslayer (1981) Alex North didn’t overtly acknowledge the Dark Ages. “The score was one of the most dramatic scores I’ve ever written. The idea of sorcery in the sixth century, and the fantasy and the adventure and the beautifully grotesque monster, all of that gave me an opportunity to go all the way and be free.” In the television remake of The Man in the Iron Mask (1977) Allyn Ferguson used some music by seventeenth-century French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully played by the Musica Antiqua from London to accompany a dance in Louis XIV’s court. But that is source music. What about expressing the terror? As Ferguson describes it, “The score is a sort of take-off from there, but people in the twentieth century are not going to relate to seventeenth-century music, so I had to do something different there. If you want to convey fear or terror, you need to deal with the kinds of sounds that most people in our society associate with fear or terror. Music can’t describe—it’s abstract. But all of us

Composing

281

come with a set of preconditions. For the dissonant stuff I went almost into a Stravinsky kind of approach. Twentieth-century ears have interpreted Stravinsky to be weird. So you’re playing a game all the time, trying to establish an avenue of communication and you’re not sure where the listener is.” Georges Delerue’s Main Title for A Man for All Seasons (1966) is an excellent example of period flavor in an original piece of music. Woody Allen has made fine use of period music FIGURE 11.1 The Affair of the Necklace (2001)

On the track

282

© 2001 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

283

as both source and stylistic underscoring in films like Radio Days (1987), Manhattan (1979), and Purple Rose of Cairo (1985).

HORROR Nightmare on Elm Street has become a kind of cult classic. And yet I’d have to say that there’s a lightness to it. It does have fun with itself, even being a screamer. —Charles Bernstein

In an era that has produced a record number of bloody, violent films, and mad slasher movies, “there is a genre within the genre,” says Charles Bernstein, “which has a lot of

On the track

284

imagination. I think that’s why Nightmare on Elm Street [1984] did as well as it did. It’s not a slasher movie, and you’re never sure whether you’re watching a dream or reality, which is very much the experience you have with James Joyce or Fellini’s 8 1/2 [1963]. [Director] Wes Craven is a scholar and a former English professor, who I think has the ability to play with your sense of reality. “I sometimes had to let the audience know they were watching a dream, and sometimes I had to fool them into thinking they were not. My approach is intuitive, but sometimes just the presence of music will indicate that there’s something about that FIGURE 11.2 Victor/Victoria (1982)

© 1981, 1982 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film Co. Rights assigned to SBK Catalogue Partnership. All rights controlled and administered by SBK Variety Catalog Inc. International copyright secured. Made in the U.S.A. reality that’s questionable. In the choice of spotting, if you bring in the music at the beginning of a scene, you’re letting them know there’s something about that scene that’s different from the one that preceded it. Whereas holding off and waiting for another moment was one way of fooling the audience into not realizing that there was a major transition when that scene began. “There were a lot of little tricks in Nightmare on Elm Street. I had a theme and also a

Composing

285

sub-theme (or a counter theme), and one was evocative of this dream villain that appears in the dreams of these teenagers, and I could bring that sound in. It wasn’t as obvious as the shark sound in Jaws [see Figure 13.1]. Therefore it wasn’t quite, ‘Oh-oh, here comes Freddie.’ But there was a sense of being able to somewhat manipulate the audience into feeling his presence when he wasn’t on the screen—to indicate his imminent arrival.” Terror is the objective in a horror film, and music has a powerful ability to communicate it. The scenes of terror are often ones with kinetic action and energy, and it’s important to remember that the music is scoring not the action, but the emotion: the throbbing heart, the shrieking voice, the inescapable and overwhelming fear the audience feels. Graeme Revell notes, “There’s a big, big requirement of music especially in a horror film because they really just are not scary until the music goes on. In fact you usually just want to laugh. It’s also a very open palette of sounds that you can use and I think that’s also challenging and really sets you up. Anything goes, and there are also really, really strong structural requirements of how to make a moment scary. And so there’s a lot of crafting that one learns in the horror field.” Type Casting It is not unusual to become known for a particular genre and then find yourself getting no opportunities to score films outside of that genre. “Once you start on horror movies,” Revell says, “then of course you’re the horror movie guy until you can desperately get off them somehow. Comedy’s worse, because you never get to show that you can write big action sweeping themes. In my case I had to refuse to do thrillers and horror movies at FIGURE 11.3 Victor/Victoria (1982)

On the track

286

© 1981, 1982 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film Co. Rights assigned to SBK Catalogue Partnership. All rights controlled and administered by SBK Variety Catalog Inc. International copyright secured. Made in the U.S.A. one point. I just said, ‘No, I’m not going to do any more, or I’ll be doing these for the rest of my life.’”

SOURCE MUSIC Source music can really be dull. Source music is always saved until the night before the scoring session, and then tossed off out of hand and off the cuff Source music is always farmed out. Source music is a necessary nuisance. Source music is never taken seriously by the serious film composer. —False Rumors

Source music is music that the people on the screen can hear, while underscoring is the music that they can’t hear but the audience can. As such, it is often no less important than any other music in the score. The music that seems to be coming from the scene can originate from several different sources: (1) from a known visual source such as a

Composing

287

Mariachi band, car radio, or a jukebox; (2) from a nonvisual (off screen) source like a marching band or CD player; (3) from an imaginary source (something that probably would be believable in a scene, such as a car radio or CD player). No matter what the originating source is, it should always be as authentic as possible. The composer is often responsible for all source music (other than that recorded as sync sound on the set or on location), although the producer may license songs or other existing music for source music. The composer may need to imitate amateur ensembles, and has to get properly amateurish performances from his studio musicians at such times, or use amateurs. Georges Delerue composed an on-screen marching band source piece for A Little Romance (1979). “I asked my musicians to play badly. It’s hard to do, because sometimes it’s too much.” Detuning some of the brass and winds helps in cases like this, as does distant miking to approximate a realistic outdoor recording. Unless there is a visual or dramatic motivation for starting or stopping source music, it is usually recorded overlong so it can be cut in by the music editor to come in and/or go out in progress. This should be discussed during the spotting session. When a song or other source music is heard in a film, you might think that the scene must show a source of the sound at least for a moment, such as a radio playing or a live band. Yet some contemporary films, especially for the teenage market, are purposely loaded with current recorded music often played loudly, sometimes with no visual explanation for the source of the music. As Ira Newborn points out about his work with John Hughes on Sixteen Candles (1984) and other teen films, “As far as your traditional logic about the radio music not sounding loud and present for reality, it should be fudged a little. That’s traditional logic, but in films you can do any damn thing you want. If you can’t see the source of the music it’s probably a kid wearing earphones. The point is, John doesn’t feel bound by that anyway. Teenagers aren’t bothered by that—momentarily they see something they like, they hear a piece of music they like and—fine!”

INTERWEAVING SOURCE AND SCORE Source music is most often used as independent music without any underscoring to accompany or overlap it, yet it can also change its function at any time and continue as score, acknowledging the emotions and events of the drama. Source Music Can Function as Score Sometimes source music can begin to function as powerful dramatic underscoring. Very often, although not always, the source cue is transformed somewhat to achieve this effect, usually through orchestration. Near the end of Prizzi’s Honor (1985), Irene (Kathleen Turner) puts on a record and we hear pop music (02:03:27), which gets increasingly Italian sounding as the strings begin to dominate, building with the intensity of the scene. The music is dubbed as a long crescendo to increase its effectiveness, continuing through the slow-motion shot of Charley (Jack Nicholson) tossing a knife through her throat. At that point the music ends abruptly, highlighting the kill. There is no justification in reality for the record to stop, but it doesn’t matter because the source music has become score.

On the track

288

There is a fine example of source music supporting the emotions in a scene in Witness (1985) when Book (Harrison Ford) and Rachel, the Amish woman (Kelly McGillis), flirt and dance with each other in the barn. “(What a) Wonderful World” plays as source music from a visual radio (at 01:04:50). As they become more psychologically involved with each other the music begins to function emotionally more and more like underscore, pulling them closer together and emphasizing their mutual attraction. The source music is not changed or adapted in any way as it becomes score—the acting says it all. Source Music Can Change into Score A composer can transform source music into score by changing the instrumentation from the reality suggested by a live or recorded musical performance into the orchestration of an underscoring ensemble. The music will usually change somewhat to function more as underscoring (perhaps being more sensitive to the shifts of emphasis in the dialogue or action, for instance). In The Magnificent Seven (1960), a solo flute passage (at 01:29:14) bridges from the end of one scene into the next, revealing the villains counting their losses. A guitar, implying the possibility of a source guitar playing somewhere on the campsite, is heard under their dialogue. In the middle of this scene, Elmer Bernstein segues to woodwinds (01:30:00). The illusion of reality, provided by the solo guitar off in the distance, is smoothly replaced by the cinematic convention of an orchestra. In Seems Like Old Times (1980) there is a very clear moment in which a source cue segues into underscore: Marvin Hamlisch changes the live piano source music during the party into underscoring on a common piano/harp chord, after which the underscoring orchestra takes over, continuing the cue as score. The transitions from source to underscore are frequently difficult because of pitch problems, because production sound guitars and singing, and actors humming, are rarely tuned to A = 440. In Animal House (1978), for example, the on-screen humming of the “Star Spangled Banner” is picked up by the scoring orchestra with a noticeably different pitch. Source Music Can Crossfade to Score There are times when source music can be effectively crossfaded into a dramatic cue in dubbing. This technique allows for a more significant change of the music’s point of view and function, because the source cue and the underscoring cue can be completely different in sound, orchestration, and character, with the composer smoothly changing from one to the other through a smooth crossfading. It can work just as well in reverse, by crossfading back to source music from score. The crossover from source to score should be done prior to scoring, with the elements separated in case an adjustment need be made on the dubbing stage. In Giorgio Moroder’s electronic score for Scarface (1987) there is a highly styled variation of this crossfade technique, a moment when the source music gives way to score and then continues again. The scene starts with source cue dance music at a club. Another cue fades up (with the source lower in volume) as Tony (Al Pacino) sees his

Composing

289

sister dancing with a stranger (01:17:31 from the Universal logo on the videocassette). This effect only lasts a few seconds, after which the source music resumes. Later in the scene, electronic score again enters on the move in on Tony’s eyes as his sister leaves with the man, completely replacing the source (01:23:49); the score ends abruptly and we return to the reality of the source dance music on the cut to Tony as he follows his sister. Source Music and Score Can Be Used Simultaneously If a sequence is being scored during which a character plays the piano, usually the score is spotted to end as the on-screen music begins. However, scoring through a scene like this can be very effective if the score is playing an emotional point of view that can continue simultaneously with the on-screen music. In Testament (1983), James Horner scored a scene in which the mother (Jane Alexander) consoles her daughter who is saying, ‘Don’t come in—I just want to die.’ When we see and hear the daughter practicing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ on the piano, the score continues through this source music so that the source and score actually function together on two different emotional levels. Later in the film, the mother sings a lullaby to her son, who sings along as he’s being bathed. Again the cue continues, playing the drama in counterpoint to the lullaby. Source Music Can Play the Underscoring Theme Sometimes the themes of the source music and the underscoring can be interchanged. This works best when the score is based on idiomatic materials of some type, whether they are contemporary or period.

SCORES FOR STUDY The reader is urged to study on DVD or videocassette the illustrations cited in this chapter, some of which are listed below, as well as these further examples of the principles discussed. All timings cited are those on the DVD when released on that medium. The first number indicates the lapsed time in hours, the second the minutes, and the third seconds. Approximate timings are included for films only available on videocassette as of this writing, and are so indicated. Genres Search your local video store for action films, comedies, documentaries, and horror movies. Select a few titles and observe those elements discussed above that are present and how they are used. Historical and period films will most often be under “drama.” Source Music Glory (1989, James Horner). At 00:56:40 the band plays, accompanying the newly uniformed soldiers. This source music segues at 00:57:27 to orchestral score, with sound

On the track

290

effects gradually fading out as they continue to march. Scent of a Woman (1992, Thomas Newman). There is a pivotal scene in this movie in which Frank (Al Pacino) dances the tango, which is played by a small combo at a restaurant. Subsequently, Newman interjects the flavor of a tango at 01:39:27 when Frank compares his dance partner (and, by implication, all women) to a magnificent Ferrari. At the end of the film, as Frank returns home (02:31:28), the score establishes the feel of a tango to suggest his pleasure in being alive. Titanic (1997, James Horner). There are two significant bodies of source music in this film, one for the Irish immigrant travelers in the lowest-class deck of the ship (performed by an authentic folk group), and another for the first-class passengers (which includes a string trio and a dance orchestra). As the ship is sinking (at 2 hours and 31 minutes), the string trio plays on deck; then this source music begins to function as score, playing a montage focusing on the people left on the ship. Touch of Evil (1958, Henry Mancini). This classic film directed by Orson Welles blends Mancini’s source music (including jazz and Mexican-flavored music) with the other live-action sounds in the drama that takes place in a Mexican border town. The source music is the score.

Composing

291

12 COMPOSING Every day there’s a problem to solve. —Randy Newman

Once you stop being daring? you’re bankrupt, idea-wise. —Alex North

The only way we can succeed is by failing many times. And then being surrounded by people who have enough faith to pick you up off the floor and help you out. —Hans Zimmer

I know what a great score can do for a picture, and I hunger for a great score. —Paul Wendkos, Director

OF ALL THE PRIMARY considerations the composer faces in the process of creating a film score, none should overshadow his search for excellence. If he has only three days instead of three weeks, or three weeks instead of three months, if he has only six strings instead of sixty, if he has only a day to record instead of a week—no matter what the practical reality, he can still respond in a positive, creative way.

CREATIVE CONSIDERATIONS: WORK PROCESS I think the basic process of creativity is always the same. You sit down with the blank page and you put things down. Till you get the right thing. —Jerry Goldsmith

Whenever I start to work on a film I always reserve the right to change my mind about anything. —John Powell

On the track

292

Just be personal, be an individual. —Elliot Goldenthal

Everyone has a personal way of working. We all bring our own idiosyncrasies to the work process, just as we do to the diningroom table and family budgeting discussions. As with other activities, a certain amount of ritual and routine is helpful. John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, Howard Shore, Bruce Broughton, and Christopher Young are among the composers who write with a pencil at a piano, sketching everything out in detail. Harry Gregson-Williams and John Debney, after developing some material at the piano, will then move to their electronic workstations. Tan Dun writes his score and then checks it on the piano; the late Walter Scharf used to compose while seated on a deck chair of his 38-foot yacht, without a piano in sight. James Newton Howard who, like Debney and others, used to sketch everything in pencil on paper, now balances his work at the computer with pencil sketching. Many, many other composers use their computers as both sketch pad and compositional repository and workstation, bypassing completely traditional methods of sketching. But these are just the particulars of a composer’s work method, which in turn determine just how an individual composer gets his ideas into a format that can be transformed into the finished score on the film’s soundtrack. How these composers conceive their scores is much more important.

INTUITION AND THE SUBCONSCIOUS I’m an audience member, if I’m moved by a scene. I take how I was moved and it turns into notes. It’s a direct connection to my emotional response from the movie. —James Newton Howard

I always begin by looking at the film as a viewer, a spectator. I look at a film emotionally. I want to feel something when I see the film. That first initial feeling I think is tremendously important. —Howard Shore

During the creative process, intuition is your best friend. There is no finer critic, wiser scholar, or more effective hot line to your muse. As a composer, the goal during the creative process is to stimulate your intuition and avoid blocking it with your intellect. Most composers agree that the way to tap into this creative power is to respond emotionally to the project, to react as an audience member and then translate your emotions into music. Consequently the work process will most often begin with your emotional response and then progress to a period when you begin to channel those

Composing

293

feelings into your work. This can take time, based on the overall duration of an assignment. “I allow a week or two or however long I feel that I need to kind of dream about the movie,” says Howard Shore. “And I make that the most nontechnical of all the processes, where I’m just not looking at the film again, but thinking about it. And as I’m thinking about it, I have my notebook with me and I might just sketch in little ideas or I might play something, a few ideas on the piano, or I might think about relationships of notes on paper, or musical ideas that might involve things like certain type of notation, like in The Cell I used a very specific type of notation for the film. I might think about certain concepts of

Howard Shore. composition, twentieth century, nineteenth century, eighteenth century, whatever, that might relate to the film. “So I’m thinking in a really subtext, very subconscious kind of way. And you’re trying to soak the film into your subconscious, remember the most vivid feelings about it, and connect to what the filmmaker was trying to create, or has created on screen. And that process might involve a lot of composition, a lot of improvisation because it’s something you want to feel—look at something, feel it emotionally, and then create something musical based on it. It’s somewhat of a jazz concept, where you’re hearing something and then you’re performing with the group your feeling of that moment. You know, it’s where people are doing free improvisation, passing ideas around. Very similar to that.” This initial phase is often a period of reflection and contemplation. Sometimes the film may evoke feelings or even a musical point of view right away, but it’s not unreasonable to allow days if not weeks for your creative response to evolve. After this period, when Mark Mancina starts to write, he works without directly referencing the film. “I like to write music away from the picture for a little while. If the music works in the movie, and also stands on its own, I think that’s a pretty good accom plishment. I tend to like to try and write things first, then throw them against the picture, and start seeing what sticks

On the track

294

and what doesn’t. Then I slowly start to score.” However you do it, during the process of complete immersion in the film, creative solutions will occur to you. This is the time when you develop your concept for the score on the most elemental basis, based on your emotions. Whereas Shore, like John Williams, views the film once and then begins his work apart from the film, others may view the film a number of times, letting themselves get deeper and deeper into it. Danny Elfman will look for key moments in the film that he can respond to more specifically with music. “I go through a period of experimentation, based on how much time I have on the film, and then I’ll usually pick a scene in the beginning, the middle, and the end of the movie, and once I have my themes laid out, I need to see how they are going to break down. The only way to do that is to apply them to some critical scenes. If I feel that it’s going to work for these three scenes, then I’m covered. Then I’ll go back to the start and work chronologically through the rest of the movie.” Once he is actually searching for the specific music for his score, Christopher Young takes another approach. “I force myself to face the music, as it were, and will not address any internal scene until I have completed the Main and the End Titles. When I first started I used to pick an inconsequential scene, and see what I do with that one, and then sort of work my way out and hope that by a point at which I was halfway through the movie maybe I’d discover what my theme was and then ultimately work my way to the Main Title after having stumbled into the main theme somehow. Now I refuse to do that. Even if I get so far behind, I still will make sure that I’ve formulated the bookends.” This is another way of morphing your abstract emotional connection to the film into the score. “I know that I look at a film and the first thing that I want to try and do is that I want one theme that will more or less sum up the entire—I don’t want to say philosophical, but spiritual, perhaps—dramatic message of the picture,” says Jerry Goldsmith. “And from that I will try and develop other secondary themes or maybe write new themes, depending on what’s necessary.” If you are having difficulty finding the specific music for your score, chances are you haven’t spent enough time in the first phase. Try reviving that frame of mind. As Howard Shore says, that phase is “very nontechnical, it’s very dreamy, there’s a lot of napping involved, frankly. And it’s kind of putting yourself in a noncomplex situation in terms of allowing yourself to breathe a little bit. It’s almost where you don’t want the day-to-day complexities of life to filter into it too much. You need a lot of time to just think and think about the film and what you’re thinking about. You need to get inside your own subconscious, so I don’t allow a lot of extraneous kind of noises. That’s why I say it’s mostly about napping and dreaming.” A note of caution: if you rush through this phase, your work may not be as intuitive and deeply rooted in the film as you might wish. So, the creative process generally unfolds in two phases: (1) the tapping into intuitive insights and awareness, and the development of a creative or conceptual vision of what the score can be; (2) the verbalizing and intellectualization of the project and the creator’s vision. Even if you begin with an intellectualization period prior to a first screening, you will want to turn that part of your mind off when you watch so you can shift your awareness and receptivity to your intuitive side. Shore considers this process so vital “that if you don’t do that and allow that enough time, it’s like a house of cards—you’ll never really successfully reach the end of it.” If you have five weeks, he says, spend one

Composing

295

of those weeks devoted to this process. Thomas Newman allows his creative vision to evolve during the entire time he is composing. He works in stages: letting the film sink into his subconscious, beginning to develop his concept, sketching some materials, setting them down in sketch form, and then recording those sketches so he has something specific to develop further. He then takes this recorded material to his small team of performers: three or four players including guitarist George Doering and percussionist Michael Fisher. “All my keyboard work I do at my studio before I go to another studio to work with these guys,” Newman says. “With my ideas on a tape with a click, we just start going to work. It’s fun that way cause it keeps it loose. Oftentimes, when I work with players, I’ll want to come in with as little finished material as I can, or enough skeletal finished material so that they can pull out instruments that they’re interested in or that they’ve just purchased. Stuff like that seems to fascinate me because it interests them. So, oftentimes I’ll want to appeal to players, to say, ‘What can we do here?’ and they’ll say, ‘Well, what about such and

Thomas Newman. such?’ and then we’ll pull something out. On American Beauty it was like that with George Doering and the use of plucked and strummed instruments. ‘What kind of instrument can we use here?’ And I think in all cases we want it to be nonethnic. I have a wish to use world instruments, instruments more for the abstraction of the color than for their ethnic kind of bent.” These musicians become involved with Newman in the film’s drama. “Most of them have a great dramatic sensibility. So what I’ll do is I’ll come in with enough of a finished idea to play this idea with the film, play it with dialogue—oftentimes we’ll have dialogue up because obviously dialogue is a huge consideration. And then they’ll look at it and we’ll talk about it. All the way down to saying, ‘No, no, let’s use fingers and hands instead of mallets,’ just to get a softer sound out of the skin of the drum. You make

On the track

296

adjustments like that, and there are these moments when you think, ‘Yeah, this can fit in. This really makes sense to the scene both dramatically and musically.’ “Because I am usually one-on-one with players, one player is thinking and listening as another player is executing an idea, and we just build on the other. And the danger there is, of course, by the end of the day some of these cues are so filled up with ideas, and you remember liking it along the way, but you have to then pick out and remember what you did like and be really good at subtracting.” This is an ongoing process for Newman, as he then returns from these sessions to his studio to continue his composing. He takes advantage of the electronic process of prerecording and yet the results are often more acoustic than electronic, both in the prerecords and in the final mix with orchestra. And he is able to spend much more concentrated time with his musicians than would ever be possible if they were on a scoring stage with orchestra: “What’s nice for me about working with a small ensemble is that we can really say, ‘Well, gee, right there, if we do something right there, on the “and” of three, which corresponds with a cut or some gesture of some kind, I can get in there more.’ The other advantage of it is, that, like sound-effects guys, who can feather in a sound at a time, you can really more effectively make the music work within the context of a sonic landscape. And that’s a really good thing” (see Chapter 21).

WRITER’S BLOCK It’s daunting for me and for any composer, I think, to start any project. You think, ‘Will I be able to solve problems, will I be able to come up with something as good, will I be able to hit the ball as far as I did the last time I batted? —John Williams

The great part of creativity is overcoming fear. Fear is a given. —Jerry Goldsmith

Practically everybody rolls around under the piano, and throws up, and worries that they don’t have any talent anymore. —David Shire

You can’t wait for the great inspiration. —Laurence Rosenthal

An understanding of the creative process can help immeasurably in getting through the rough times, especially in the early stages. There are those times when, contrary to all logic, you are just so wired into the project that the music is born fully realized on day

Composing

297

one. Enjoy those flashes of inspiration for what they are, but cultivate your work process to take best advantage of your intuitive powers when the going gets tough. The first screening of a film can be an almost overwhelming experience. You are watching the film go by in real time, so in two or two-and-a-half hours you have seen the entire film, and if there is a complex temp track already dubbed on the soundtrack, you are seeing the film already “scored.” You are going to have weeks to create your own score, but in a few short hours you have just lived through the entire experience and you have perhaps felt for the first time not only the emotional content of the film but also how huge a task it will be for you to write what might be more than an hour of music for the film. This is the time to settle down and give yourself some time to really get into the film. For one reason or another many creative people find it difficult to get started on a new project. It’s the “blank page” syndrome. The late Georges Delerue said, “The terrible moment is when I have to start to compose, because I try to avoid doing it. I ask my wife if I have any shopping to do. Is there nothing I can do for her?” He knew that once he started, he was completely involved and there was no turning back. Jerry Goldsmith has some good advice for everyone. “When you sit down and you have to begin something, don’t be afraid to be filled with fear, because it goes with the turf. I mean, the idea of coming away empty-handed is sometimes paralyzing. But you’ve got to move on in spite of that, because you know that you can get over that. And it’s not easy. Sometimes it’s easy. Sometimes it ain’t so easy.” In an interview with Rudy Koppl in Music from the Movies, James Newton Howard elaborated on this elemental reaction: “The fear is like a pyramid, it’s like walking down from the top, down to the bottom. It becomes less fearful and less steep as you get closer to the bottom, and it’s just a little easier to contend with. You accumulate confidence as you’re going, but that can easily be shattered. That’s why rewriting is so difficult; when somebody throws out what is essentially a really good idea for a movie, not only are you losing all that music that was working so well for the picture, but you have to generate all that energy, emotional self-assurance, and confidence all over again and start from the bottom. That’s the hard part.” Here are some suggestions when writer’s block does occur. Listen to Music You Enjoy It can be helpful to “prime the pump” a bit. David Shire listens to any kind of music that turns him on, not necessarily music that has any real relationship to the film: “Just to get me interested in music again. Many times those dark nights come when you’re hating music and you hear something you like and even though it isn’t something you want to adapt, so to speak, for your own uses, it reminds you again what good music sounds like, and how nice it is to write some.” Sleep on It This is a cliché but it works. Many people believe that if you give yourself a problem to work on before you go to bed at night, you will have the answer when you wake up the next morning. It may not happen overnight, but it will happen. When John Morris was

On the track

298

working on The Elephant Man (1980), it took him three weeks to get the answer for his Main Title (Figure 6.15): “Three weeks of going to bed with the problem and getting up with the problem, and I said, ‘What—am—I—going—to—do? But then it finally came.’ “One way or another, getting away from the problem can be productive; you stop thinking so much about it, and your relaxation permits your intuition to find the seemingly inevitable solution. Work Around It If, while composing the score, you really come to a stop, you may have to work around your impasse. Schedules usually prohibit waiting too long for the perfect idea. So at times when you’re stuck, work on other cues or themes; do anything productive to stay on schedule. Even listening to some samples, polishing a mockup, orchestrating, or preparing some sketch paper can be productive at these times, because these tasks have to be done anyway. By doing something else productive you are also getting away from the problem, which often stimulates a solution. Laurence Rosenthal describes a common work method: “You start nibbling around the edges. You write an innocuous cue here, a nonthematic cue there. I very often will get up and just dedicate two or three hours to working on themes. And then, whether I’ve gotten anything good or not, just spend the rest of the day cranking out whatever material I can for what does exist.” Acknowledge the Deadline Beginners often fear that deadlines will tighten them up and make the creative process impossible; this is rarely so. It is much more typical for professionals to achieve great motivation during the most severe deadlines. Nothing gets you going faster than a tight ten-day schedule—except a tight five-day schedule. Sending this message to your subconscious is a very powerful stimulus. Bruce Boughton says, “If it has to be done by Tuesday, that’s a great incentive. There were times when I didn’t think that I would get done, and somehow I did.” At some point in the process, the score often takes on a life of its own, just as fictional characters in a screenplay or novel may seem to “talk” to the writer, leading the story inevitably forward from scene to scene. Many composers plan out their time based on the production and dubbing schedules, working backward from their delivery date to determine how many minutes of music on the average they will need to complete in order to finish on time. Music editor Bob Badami has observed how Danny Elfman handles this. “Danny creates this calendar and on the top of it are the number of days sequentially going up and there is another box— number of days going down to the scoring session. He’s very methodical with the way that he does things.”

PREPARATION Having developed a concept for the score, you can move on to develop specific musical

Composing

299

solutions. Every decision made about the music—whether it involves writing a theme or considering the orchestration—further defines the score. In fact, finding the music may further clarify your concept. Translate the Concept into Musical Terms The four basic musical elements are melody, harmony, rhythm, and instrumental color. When you have decided on the size and specific instrumentation of your orchestra, you have started defining the sound of the score. If it is all (or mostly) electronic, that choice may also begin to suggest the nature of your score. Choose a solo color for one of the themes and you are that much further along toward a clear definition of the score. Any familiar stylistic elements clarify the musical language and choices (deciding on a pure country-western style would eliminate the use of flat 9/raised llth chords; imagining a more adventurous harmonic language influenced by a country style might encourage consideration of those chords). Envisioning two piccolos and a tuba with a hip-hop beat would tend to suggest a hybrid musical idiom. As you continue making these choices, you will begin to discover a consistent approach to your score.

PLANNING THE SCORE Of course, there should be a structure, an architecture to any score. It’s not a piece here and a piece there. It has to be thought out. You can’t approach each cue as a separate piece of music. —Jerry Goldsmith

I try to look at it as a whole from beginning to end, and not to blow the big moment coming up. —Randy Edelman

Sometimes I feel if I joined the end of one cue to another cue, it would make a solid piece. —Alex North

Planning the score takes time and dramatic insight. The first step is to clarify the thematic requirements of the score. Your musical (thematic) materials won’t work for the film if they can’t provide the necessary dramatic values. These materials become the building blocks upon which the score’s structure is designed, so they need to be as strong as possible to bear up to the heavy usage and repetition inherent in a well-constructed score. “I don’t wake up the day I’m starting a picture and write Reel 1, Part 1,” emphasizes Jerry Goldsmith. “I wish I could. I’ve got to get the material to write. Sometimes that can take weeks. Writing the score is the simplest part of it. It’s getting the approach.”

On the track

300

To get the approach you must conceive the score’s concept (which is abstract), create the thematic materials (which are specific), and outline the structure or form (which is organizational). In Chapter 13 we will explore some ways melody is used by the film composer. But even before you have composed all the basic materials for your score, you must determine what themes the score requires in a general sense: that is, the nature and the function of that thematic material. At this stage, you will want to know where and how that material will work with the film. The best way to do this is to get out the spotting notes and begin analyzing what type of music (functionally speaking) goes where. Doing this will tend to clarify the score’s requirements and function. Creating the Master Plan By studying the list of cues, you might see that there are three cues in which the music supports the central love relationship, so a theme might be needed for those scenes. Although the same theme may not necessarily be used for all three scenes, music that expresses the specific quality of that particular love relationship may be used somehow. Some musical material (thematic, rhythmic, or whatever) may need to be developed for any fights or chase sequences. With the help of the spotting notes you may now be able to organize the cues into functional categories: a love theme, a piece of material for the sequences when the heroine is alone and suffering, and so on. The nature of the main theme or music can now be defined in terms of the concept of the score: Will it be an overview theme, or connected with one or more of the central characters? Will it be the love theme? If not, what? Special musical effects or colors should be noted. These effects can be important thematic colors (like the use of Lisa Gerrard’s voice in the Gladiator score by Hans Zimmer and Gerrard), or just a passing moment (like the “beam-up” effect James Horner created for the 1982 film Star Trek II). Now is a good time to decide on their importance, in the event that an effect like this might be integrated into the overall design of the score. Of course, some of these ideas will surely develop and evolve along the way as your work progresses. Even so, here’s a suggested general approach to creating the master plan that may be helpful: 1. List all cues. 2. Add a one- or two-word description of the overall quality of each cue to the list. 3. Start a second list, sorting all cues by function (chases and shoot-outs might be together; love scenes together; all psychological cues together; and so on. 4. Start a third list, sorting out the cues within each function (separate those love scenes between the two central characters from the family “love scenes” that occur over the Christmas holidays, for instance—even though they eventually may or may not be scored with the same theme). 5. Find those scenes in each of these lists that seem to relate the most closely to each of the themes already written. 6. Put into words the qualities needed for the remainder of the thematic material for the score. The word theme applies not only to melodies, but also to motifs (see Chapter 13), specific

Composing

301

atmospheric materials, identifiable rhythms, special instrumental colors, and so on. This process should help define the function of any basic material you still need to create.

ORGANIZING THE SCORE Basically theme and variations is what film music is about. It shouldn ‘t be rhapsodic, but it should be structured in that way. —Jerry Goldsmith

Regardless of musical idiom, the best scores include an interplay between the various musical elements and themes. There is often a smooth, sometimes imperceptible flow between one theme and another, a blending of musical materials to serve the drama at any moment. The introduction of new or related material whenever necessary will smooth out the formal structure, making it better developed and more interesting. Commenting on the thematic organization of a score, Goldsmith says, “It’s not a piece here and a piece there. The idea of film music is to characterize, aside from heightening the emotional element for the audience. You’re trying to emphasize the character of the people up there. As they evolve, the music must evolve with them. The music has to have a starting point and an ending point. And you’ve got to develop that music in such a fashion that you have some place to go with it. There has to be a master plan as to where you’re going. “Whether you’re doing a picture with one theme like Chinatown or one with five themes, they have to interrelate with each other yet be totally separate and identifiable by themselves.” Goldsmith’s score for Basic Instinct (1992) is based upon two themes that function individually and also together; for The Sum of All Fears (2002) the score is more complex, utilizing a number of thematic motifs throughout. The Form of the Film Determines the Form of the Score As Rachel Portman succinctly puts it, “I don’t come up with a structure, the film is really the structure.” If a film starts off very innocuously, showing a typical American family and giving no hint of any dramatic confrontation, then suddenly turns bizarre and ultimately violent, the music must follow the dramatic sequence. The score has three options: (1) to be silent during the neutral, nondramatic scenes, and enter when the tension begins; (2) to play the first part of the film slightly dark and ominously, with a suggestion of the terror that will follow; (3) to play the nondramatic scenes lightly, for warmth and relaxation, as though nothing will ever happen to this pleasant, idyllic family. Quincy Jones and director Richard Brooks decided to play the nondramatic scenes lightly when they scored the 1967 shocker In Cold Blood, the true story of a brutal mass murder, desiring a contrast between the daydream and the nightmare. Alan Silvestri’s score for What Lies Beneath (2000) suggests ominous possibilities from the beginning of the film.

On the track

302

Pacing and Form There are times when the choice of new, possibly unrelated thematic material may be dictated by specific pacing needs of the film. Sometimes a film is basically slow-moving, and any opportunity to add variety, motion, or change of mood may give the film more impact. In Sophie’s Choice (1982), Marvin Hamlisch scored one sequence in the style of Vivaldi, with two trumpets, harpsichord, and orchestra, giving the scene a wellplaced lift in the midst of slow, downbeat material. In Revolution (1985), John Corigliano deliberately chose to score a sequence in which a New York trapper (Al Pacino) is totally humiliated by the British with a lighter tempo and feeling. “I took the same theme as the ‘War Lament’ and I made that into a Mendelssohnian aristocratic fox hunt. Completely effervescent. And then in the middle of the scene the theme goes into a kind of tarantella, so you get the idea that this is kind of fun. “I did this because this is the grimmest film I’ve ever seen, and I desperately felt that it needed something bright even if it was ironic. I told [director] Hugh Hudson that this film has only one light minute in the whole three-and-a-half hours. You must have something to relieve the dark, sad, oppressive quality.”

UNITY AND VARIETY The essence of a good film score is the right balance between having too much new stuff all the time and repeating your initial motif. —Anne Dudley

Composing

303

John Corigliano. Photo: Christian Steiner. What I really try to do is to take one simple motif of the material for the picture, and a broad theme, and construct it so they always can work in concert with each other or separately. The repetition of an identifiable motif does have a cumulative effect upon the audience if they hear it enough times. —Jerry Goldsmith

Form is the result of repetition and contrast, unity and variety. The form of a score is developed through the repetition of melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, and orchestral materials, combined with the variations of these and other musical materials. These ideas are exemplified throughout the works of Beethoven, Mozart, and other classical symphonists. Strong scores usually maintain a fine balance between too much and too little repetition. Totally disregard the principle of repetition and the score becomes too abstract, too fragmented. Overuse the principle of repetition and you have a one-note composition that cannot withstand the duration of a full-length film. Film editor John Martinelli suggests the composer be cautious about basing the entire score on one piece of material. “We’ve all heard the story where you come onto the scoring stage and you have one great cue, and all of a sudden the whole picture is one cue with a couple of variations, and they’ve thrown the score out.”

On the track

304

There have been successful scores that have gone both ways, but these instances can be deceptive in that there may in fact be more variety within a one-theme score than you think, and there may be strong unifying elements in a seemingly unrelated series of cues. The Power of Association The reason repetition of a theme is so valuable is that the music develops tremendous emotional power through the cumulative reaction of an audience over the course of the film. The music becomes more and more closely associated with the characters and their emotions. When the audience hears that theme later in the film, they remember the characters’ (and their own) emotions and can empathize with them more easily; the musical repetition carries with it a powerful accumulation of emotions from earlier scenes. When Max Steiner’s classic melody “Tara’s Theme” plays at the end of Gone with the Wind (1939), it has much more emotional impact for the audience than when it is played at the beginning (even with the same orchestration and volume) because the theme has developed so much associative power by that time. Mark Snow’s score for The XFiles: Fight the Future (1998) benefits from the audience having heard the main theme weekly for many seasons on the “X-Files” television series. Exact Repetition When you want to move the audience to emotionally respond with “Oh—here they go again,” exact repetition can be very effective. It doesn’t matter what the emotional quality of the material or the scene is; the principle applies to any emotion. When the “James Bond theme” begins, we know exactly what to expect. The repetition of the short “shark” motif in John Williams’ score for Jaws (1975) establishes immediate emotional associations with terror; when it begins, the audience quickly begins to feel its cumulative power of association (see Figure 13.1). Same Theme, Different Setting Any one or more of the four basic musical elements (melody, harmony, rhythm, color) can be used to give variety to the repeated use of a theme. If the theme is romantic, the melody and harmony are likely to remain much the same throughout, but the rhythmic setting can be quite different depending on the dramatic situation. Tempo can change, the rhythm section may be used for a rock feel at one time and removed entirely for a more rubato, classical feel at another. The orchestral colors used for the cue may be quite different from previous cues, lending significant variety to thematic repetition. In The Way We Were (1973), Marvin Hamlisch integrated his main theme throughout his score, expressing a variety of moods. Even with changes of settings and feel, the theme doesn’t necessarily enter at obvious moments. There is also a great deal of variety in the uses of the theme. By the end of the film, when the song introduction begins again, the audience benefits from the full power of that musical association without feeling that the theme has been overused.

Composing

305

RESEARCH Depending on the nature of the film, research is often the key to a well-crafted score, and might be used in the following ways. 1. To define musical language and approach When Laurence Rosenthal scored his first film, a documentary on the history of Russia, he spent three weeks in the New York Public Library pouring over every collection of Russian folk songs that he could find. He used his recollection of that research when he scored the television miniseries Peter the Great (1986; see Figure 6.10). Contemporary music demands the same fidelity to detail. Trevor Rabin couldn’t have scored Rock Star (2001) so authoritatively without a solid understanding of the rock and roll idiom. As a longtime member of the rock group Yes, he didn’t need to do additional research because he already had a solid command of authentic rock, but if you don’t have that level of experience in a musical style, you’ve got to do the research. Alex North restudied the style of the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century music masters to capture the appropriate period flavor for his score for The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965). 2. To learn about the authentic instruments and locate the musicians For Remo Williams (1985), Craig Safan specifically wanted to use Korean instruments: “The trick was to find what was Korean and not Chinese or Japanese—that didn’t fit our preconception of oriental, which is a bamboo flute and a gong and a koto. So I had to do a lot of research with Korean musicians to find out what sounds uniquely Korean. And there are a number of instruments that do sound uniquely Korean, and I only used those instruments.” Mark Mancina says his research typically involves listening to appropriate music. For Moll Flanders (1996) he not only listened to a lot of classical and Celtic music, but he studied the bodhran (an Irish goatskin drum). 3. To be aware of previous scores When Marvin Hamlisch accepted the assignment to score the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), the first thing he did was to screen every James Bond film made up to that point. By the end of that research, he had an excellent idea of what had been done already for the Bond movies, what he particularly liked, and what he wanted to do with his score. Research can be an extremely valuable and often vital tool for the composer, who should look for any promising sources at the beginning of every new assignment. Used well, musical materials gathered from this research can bring color, personality, and appropriate authenticity to a score while stimulating rather than stifling originality.

TEMPO OR PULSE

On the track

306

Just the act of determining what the click will be involves finding some kind of rhythm. And even in order to time the cue out, I think you do have to make that kind of a commitment. I may not actually write a rhythm figure first, but I’m certainly deep into what the basic pulse will be. —Michael Melvoin

I suppose my first impulse as I compose is movement, not theme. —Gerald Fried

Developing a feel for the tempo or pulse of any given cue is often the composer’s first task when he begins to sketch—even though he may not have developed thematic material at this point. The term pulse didn’t become standard terminology accidentally: it is the heartbeat and musical life of the scene. Finding an appropriate pulse is an intuitive skill. If you already have video of the film but don’t yet have your thematic material, play the scene several times through and try to imagine the music only as pulse: no pitches. Once you feel comfortable with the basic tempo, then you might try adding music. At this point you can ignore every other consideration of scoring the scene, including how the music synchronizes with the scene, whether it gets in the way of the dialogue, whether you feel the harmony is just right for the scene. Your only consideration will be to ascertain whether the pulse feels right for the scene. Answer these questions: 1. Does the tempo feel emotionally compatible with the scene? 2. Does it provide enough basic forward motion? 3. Does it provide too much forward motion? 4. If you believe you will need this, will it accommodate faster motion (eighth-note patterns, and so on) without feeling too fast or busy? 5. Is it a comfortable tempo for the dialogue? (Remember that faster tempos can sound slower by playing half notes instead of quarters or quarter notes instead of eighths. = 24 frame click is not too slow for a legato cue under soft dialogue). 6. If the cue calls for tension, play a repeated low note with the basic pulse. Do you feel a dramatic buildup? Does the tempo feel about right? 7. Is it compatible with the editor’s cutting rhythm? If you are composing a contemporary score, writing to a drum loop can be helpful. The potential pitfall is that the loop pattern can obscure the basic pulse, providing you with too much ornamental motion (unless you will be using the loop or something close to it in your final music for the cue). On the other hand, if the score is not contemporary, writing with a drum loop can adversely influence the musical style. Variable Pulse

Composing

307

The tempo of a cue may not be constant. It might slow down, speed up, slow down, and then return to the original tempo, or remain steady for a while and then speed up to the end of the cue. You can work with the Auricle or a sequencer to get the basics of the variable pulse timed out to the scene, or you can play in free time using a sequencer, as Anne Dudley does: “I can play something in pretty much free time on the piano and my husband Roger can click it in a sort of logical way using Streamline, and it still has its ritards and accelerandos and the musicians can follow it” (see Chapter 15).

PERSONAL TASTE AND STYLE All the decisions that a composer makes relate to his overall artistic tastes. Everyone has personal prejudices; if you allow your tastes their natural bent, the concept for your score will be expressed in a stylistically personal way. As director Oliver Stone puts it, “Once you choose the actor, you’re bound by that style, those parameters. An actor will stretch himself, but he can only go so far. He’s not going to become untrue to himself. The same thing with a composer.”

BEGINNING THE SKETCH Before you phrase a scene you’ll need to select a tempo and rough in the cue on the computer or sketch paper. If sketching with pencil and paper, it can help to put the correct timings (either free timing or click) at the top of every bar or two. Then: 1. Add the significant timings from your analysis list to this overall plan. 2. Consider adjusting the tempo slightly to accommodate any hits that need to be precise. 3. Compose your thematic material for the scene; or if you already have the material, play it against the video without necessarily trying to fit it exactly to the scene. 4. Place the thematic material roughly where you would like it to play. This may leave silent bars on one or both sides of the thematic statement(s), which you can fill in later. 5. Now shift the thematic material slightly and try playing it in several different places. When the theme’s location seems most compatible to your music in terms of your selected hits or phrasing timings, lock it in. Use the SMPTE time code to identify the start. You might first adjust your thematic material to play over the more difficult transitions such as hard cuts or dissolves to a new scene, a new location, or a significant point of emotional thrust. There will always be a way to work out any other phrasing problems. 6. If everything is still working for you dramatically, make some notes now about compositional or orchestrational changes at your choice timings. Sometimes just adding a new color to the orchestration can be enough acknowledgment of a slight shift in dramatic emphasis on the screen. Adding a soft string pad under the theme in bar 7. as the heroine turns and says, “I love you,” can be very enhancing to the scene, without disturbing the flow of the music (see Chapter 10).

On the track

308

Now that the film’s dramatic needs are in focus, let’s consider the basic musical elements: melody, harmony, rhythm, and color. These elements are completely interactive—none function in a vacuum. Nevertheless, it helps to isolate these four elements in order to analyze their roles in the context of effective film scoring.

Composing

309

13 USING MELODY I love it when the score is like an opera, where the whole thing is pulled together with thematic material. —John Barry

Everybody loves a great melody. Great melodies are very hard to write. —Laura Karpman

The most exciting is really that minute when you crack the melody. When you’re sitting and you’ve been waiting a long time…that’s the big high. —Rachel Portman

Once I wrote that march theme for The Last Starfighter, that was it. I played it slow, I played it fast, I played it upside down; it worked in three-four, in four-four—it worked everywhere. —Craig Safan

THERE ARE LEGENDARY STORIES of great songwriters hurriedly jotting down melodies on the back of envelopes or napkins that became songs we sing generation after generation. These stories aren’t romanticized fragments of fiction. In the earlier years of film music, Victor Young was known for writing melodies easily and quickly. Many of these melodies became American pop music standards, including the classic “Stella by Starlight,” a theme from his score for The Uninvited (1944). But sometimes it takes more effort. Henry Mancini used to say he wrote his theme for Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1961 in six weeks and thirty minutes. Once the idea came, the remainder of the process was almost instantaneous. When Johnny Mercer added lyrics for Audrey Hepburn to sing on camera in the film, “Moon River” became one of the most popular film music songs of the decade. Like others, John Powell likes to create his thematic material when he first begins work on a new film. The eight- or nine-minute suites he creates based upon his initial reaction to the film contain melodies that frequently become the basis of his scores. For his suite for Face/Off (1997), his first motion picture assignment, “Some of the tunes were

On the track

310

probably connected and were longer tunes and when it came to actually put them in the movie, you split them up and B sections become different tunes. I think the B section of one tune became a tune that ends the movie.” Trevor Rabin had composed about 40 minutes of music for Deep Blue Sea (1999) when Renny Harlin said to him,” ‘We need the shark theme,’ and I said, ‘It’s there.’ He said, ‘No, no, no, I can hear the music there but we need a theme on top of it.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, Gees! There’s no time to go back and rewrite the amount of times that the shark theme happens.’ So I had to really integrate it into what was there.” Rabin did, and “it worked out fine.” He had been hearing his music for the shark as being thematic, and it was for him, but it wasn’t recognizably melodic enough for the director. Whatever your thematic material may be, it will provide the foundation for a wellcrafted score. It may not be a long line melody; it may be a very short melodic fragment or motif. It might be primarily a rhythm, containing no recognizable “melody” as such. Mark Mancina’s score for Speed (1994) has a short rhythmic segment played by the orchestra that became one of his themes—no melody line with it, just rhythm. One such use of rhythm begins at 01:04:21, first with a bass register rhythm, followed by an added mid-register rhythmic pattern in the strings.

MOTIFS That was [director] George Miller’s idea, to have a “Mad Max” motif appear every time either he’s in trouble or you want to say something with the music which is not too clear visually. —Maurice Jarre

You try to start out with something that immediately the audience can really associate with, whether it’s three notes, four notes, whatever it is, something that registers upon them. —Jerry Goldsmith

A lot of these films, there isn’t time for a longer tune. —John Powell

The development of motifs is a powerful compositional device for the film composer, allowing him to bring an overall sense of unity to his score and still leave room for variety. Because motifs are short, they are easily manipulated for sequences or shots of any length. This is particularly valuable today in that many films really don’t allow for long-lined melodies—there simply isn’t space. In character-driven films, yes, but not necessarily in more action-oriented films. As Graeme Revell says, “The requirements these days are much more energy, pulse, dynamics in most films, tension, those kind of things, more visceral rather than character.” You can see this in films as diverse as

Composing

311

American History X (1998, Anne Dudley), Batman (1989, Danny Elfman), eXistenZ (1999, Howard Shore), The Matrix (1999, Don Davis), Minority Report (2002, John Williams), Murder at 1600 (1997, Christopher Young), The Patriot (2000, John Williams), Signs (2002, James Newton Howard), and The Sum of All Fears (2002, Jerry Goldsmith). Many of these scores use longer lines when FIGURE 13.1 Jaws (1975)

On the track

312

© 1975 Universal—Duchess Music Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 13.2 Star Wars (1977)

Composing

313

© 1977 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (50%) & Bantha Music. WarnerTamerlane administers on behalf of itself and Bantha Music. All rights reserved, Used by permission. appropriate and feasible, blending them into their motivic writing. One of the most famous motifs in a contemporary film score is the menacing motif from Jaws (1975) composed by John Williams to characterize the shark. Although often referred to as the “Theme from Jaws” it is essentially two bass notes that become thematic through repetition (see Figure 13.1). As soon as you hear those first two notes, your senses are alerted to a dangerous presence in the water. The Jaws motif uses the interval of a half-step, which brings with it a built-in feeling of tension. In film scoring, emphasis on one or two intervals establishes those intervals as being characteristic of the sound of the score, and often enables the composer to achieve a consistency of musical texture and harmonic language while at the same time reiterating a central theme. John Corigliano describes his score for Revolution (1985) as relying on the interval of a ninth. “In Revolution, the love music at the end was the first thing I developed. I took the love theme, which starts with an upward leap of a ninth, and made the upward leap representative of Al Pacino’s struggle through the whole thing, so in the credits you just hear the horns making that leap, and throughout the movie that interval is used to develop the intensity not only of the love relationship but of Pacino himself. So the ninth is used a lot to build things with, and its use throughout the film prepares you for the love theme at the end with full strings.” Longer melodies often rely on the strength of a single interval to establish their identity and personality. In Star Wars (1977), John Williams starts his main theme with an ascending fifth (see Figure 13.2). Used this way, the interval itself can become a two-note motif independent of the theme. In Minority Report (2002), Williams composed a one-bar motif that scores the sequence in which small robotic “spyders” are let loose to search a building in which Anderton (Tom Cruise) is hiding. Programmed to do a retina scan of all people within the building, they hunt down all life, ultimately locating Anderton. Williams assigns the motif to various instruments within the cue, and on various pitch levels. He balances these statements and development of the motif with non-motivic sections. The motif as stated in the first bar of this cue is illustrated in Figure 13.3 (01:17:53). James Newton Howard makes similar use of motivic development in his score for Signs (2002). First heard in the Main Title, he uses this 3-note motif at 00:11:35 over a drone that shifts subtly from open fifths to a major triad in bars 3 and 4, to the minor triad in bars 5 and 6, back again to major in bars 7 and 8, and then ending in the minor mode (see Figure 13.4). Howard develops his motif further when Graham (Mel Gibson) is in the cornfield at night. Graham shines his flashlight on the stalks, and music begins as he perceives motion there (00:38:11). Figure 13.5 starts at 00:38:38.5 as Graham enters his house.

On the track

314

In developing a motif, every other musical element can be used effectively: the notes of the motif can be changed; the FIGURE 13.3 Miniority Report (2002)

© 2002 Songs Of SKG (BMI). Worldwide Rights for Songs of SKG Administered by Cherry River Music Co. International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved. FIGURE 13.4 Signs (2002)

Composing

315

© 2002 Touchstone Pictures Music & Songs, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. rhythmic values of the notes can be varied (eighth notes morphed into quarter notes or even whole notes, for instance). Shifts in harmony will reveal the different emotional implications of the motif; and orchestration will have an effect as well. Melodically, several notes of the motif can be extrapolated and used as a new motif to be further developed. Howard’s score for Signs contains all of these variations. In his score for Brainstorm (1983), James Horner uses a motif based on a four-note descending minor scale (the upper tetrachord). This minor scale moving downward gives the piece a driving, “down” feeling in keeping with the film’s tone. Elsewhere in the film, the motif is powerfully stated in the brass; here, though it is orchestrated with less impact, it still projects urgency. It occurs in various settings in this cue (see Figure 13.6; this excerpt begins at 01:26:22). Another very well-known theme that is derived from a motif is the “spaceship communication” motif from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) by Williams. In

On the track

316

the film, five notes are used by scientists to communicate with the visiting spaceship. In its simplest form rhythmically, this motif becomes the primary focus of the scene in which the mothership communicates with earth.

During this scene there is considerable rhythmic variety as the motif is further developed. Williams composed this motif for the demands of the script and then used it several times as part of the score, making this dramatic device into an important musical statement. Because so much associative power attaches itself to this motif through repetition as the scientists and spaceship begin to communicate, his simple melodic motif becomes symbolic of the communication between earth and the space travelers. It reappears as the last cadence of the End Credits, orchestrated for choir and harp. A second motif, used throughout the score, is shown in Figure 13.7. Note that it has the same contour as the five-note communication motif. See Figure 16.5 for an example of this motif playing in conjunction with the mothership theme. In American History X (1998), Anne Dudley says, “There are two motifs from which the rest of the score grows. I had written the Main Titles and then they added a minute or so beforehand. Well, that’s about as inconvenient as you can get. So, for me, FIGURE 13.5 Signs (2002)

Composing

317

© 2002 Touchstone Pictures Music & Songs, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

FIGURE 13.6 Brainstrom (1983)

318

Composing

319

© 1983 April Music Inc. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film Co. All rights controlled and administered by April Music Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. FIGURE 13.7 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

On the track

320

© 1977, 1979, 1980 Gold Horizon Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. the start of the score proper is when the strings come in and do those three notes. Now I had to take that back, and I started on a solo French horn, with a few drum beats and some very abstract glass harmonica sounds, some keyboard sampled sounds. For me, the main starting point was this very tiny threenote scale. The other important thematic idea is the rising fifths in the choir part. It actually appears on the cue after the opening cue, which is where Danny gets his assignment. And he’s sitting there twiddling with his flag.” In Figure 13.8, the motif is not always used in a linear fashion, but is distributed throughout the orchestra. You can hear the genesis of this motif in the Main Title, clearly stated in the string lines and elsewhere as well. (See also Figures 11.4, 10.21, and 10.25 for other excerpts from American History X.) In Howard Shore’s Main Title for Silence of the Lambs (1991) the cellos pick up the first three notes of the theme, now in eighth notes, to establish a moving figure. This illustrates the sort of flexibility you can have in using motifs to create a longer musical statement. Shore establishes a short motif in the opening bars of his score for eXistenZ (1999). Throughout the Main Title, he continues to develop this motif, using it within the orchestral texture of the piece (see Figures 13.9 and 13.10). In some cases a motif will actually function much as a longer theme would, connecting emotionally with a character or an event. Danny Elfman uses a six-note motif for Batman that stands alone as a strong musical statement, and is also developed later into a longer theme (this can be clearly heard in the Main Title, set with a driving, march-like pulse). Many permutations of this motif occur in the cue that scores the sequence where Batman first appears in the warehouse (beginning at 00:24:47 in the Axis Chemicals plant): the

Composing

321

use of the first three notes, the first four notes, the first five notes, and of course the complete six-note motif. Sometimes a portion of the motif is laced into the texture of the orchestra as a separate secondary voice. In other cues the motif is developed to reflect the drama, as in the scene where Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) places a rose on the site of his parents’ brutal murder. (This cue begins at 00:43:34 as Bruce Wayne approaches his car; the theme begins at 00:46:48. See Figure 10.23 for a use of the motif to hit the action; the excerpt starts just after 00:26:18 as Batman appears for the first time in the scene at the Axis Chemicals plant, descending from above.) John Williams uses a motif in the Main Title of his score for The Patriot (2000) that will be heard a number of times in the film played by a soft solo trumpet. Among the times it occurs: after Thomas asks his father, Martin (Mel Gibson), what happened at Fort Wilderness (00:21:40); after Martin kills a British soldier with his ax (this cue begins at 00:39:39)—the strings state the motif at 00:40:02, the solo trumpet at 00:40:42; see Figure 13.11); as Martin melts down a toy soldier to make a bullet (01:05:18); as Martin tells Gabriel what happened at Fort FIGURE 13.8 American History X (1998)

On the track

322

© 1998 New Line Tunes (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 13.9 eXistenZ (1999)

© 1999 South Fifth Ave. Publishing (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

323

Wilderness (01:23:47); and as Martin fights his arch enemy (02:30:40). Motifs can be developed in many different ways. Don Davis uses them in The Matrix (1999) as small units that can be overlapped to achieve reiterated effects analogous to the reflection of a visual image. “The first time that showed up was in the cue in which Neo [Keanu Reeves] goes to work and he’s in his cubicle and he’s given a Fed Ex package and inside the package is a cell phone, and the cell phone rings. And it’s Morpheus [Laurence Fishburne] and he’s saying, ‘Get out of there cause they’re coming to get you.’ That was 1M7 ‘Neo on the Edge.’ Starting in bar 24 there’s a repetitive motivic layered device that I use quite a bit. That happens when he first sees Agent Smith approaching him. I use that as a concept of this multilayered FIGURE 13.10 eXistenZ (1999)

© 1999 South Fifth Ave. Publishing (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

324

Don Davis. idea of what the Matrix was. It’s not what it appears to be, it’s something else. The short motifs are fugal as well, and that starts in bar 24. It kind of gradually builds up. By bar 35 I think there are about 6 lines going. It kind of goes in and out of the action when they’re chasing him and when they’re not and when he hides. [See Figure 13.12, which begins at 00:14:16, as the agents come for Neo.] It pops up again at bar 53 through 59.”

Composing

325

Davis continues to develop his concept as the cue progresses. “Then when he gets out on the ledge, I believe that’s bar 93, that’s where I have this high string line that’s basically kind of a simple fugue, but the idea I had with these two lines that are kind of hugging each other was to represent the idea of the mirrors and the reflections which were very strong images in the entire movie. And that starts in bar 93 and goes through 98). This idea first occurs at 00:15:51 after Morpheus says, ‘You take a chance either way. I leave it to you.’” [See Figure 13.13, at 00:16:23, as Neo balances on the ledge of his office-building high-rise.]

MULTIPLE MOTIFS As we discovered in American History X, you can create and develop more than one motif. When Alex North designed his score for Dragonslayer (1981), he developed a half-dozen motifs. These “cells” were then used as compositional building blocks and functioned as themes (see Figures 13.14a, b, and c). North often used these motifs in conjunction with one another; in FIGURE 13.11 The Patriot (2000)

© 2000 by Colpix Music, Inc. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

On the track

326

FIGURE 13.12 The Matrix (1999)

© 1999 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

327

On the track

328

Figure 13.15, these three motifs are shown working together simultaneously. James Horner interweaves two motifs that function as themes for A Beautiful Mind (2001). Listen to the first cue of the film to hear his fast-moving piano motif. You’ll hear this also at 00:21:36 as he leaves his friends after explaining his theory about Adam Smith’s economics. The wedding montage at 54 minutes also makes good use of this motif, which becomes an ostinato. The second motif is a four-note chordal theme that, through repetition, also often becomes an ostinato. You can hear this as Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) and John Nash (Russell Crowe) are outside looking at the stars, as he traces a constellation with her hand (at 00:43:50). This cue continues through the picnic, and Horner has used his four-note motif for that scene.

UNACCOMPANIED MELODY Sometimes a single instrument playing the melody is all that the scene requires, and can be a welcome break from more complex orchestration. It is surprising just how emotional an unaccompanied solo melody can be. It is especially effective at the begin ning of cues, but works equally well emerging from an orchestral passage. The melody can be orchestrated for a solo instrument, a combined color (like cellos or violins), or a mixed

Composing

329

color (such as alto flutes, English horn, and subtone clarinet). Rachel Portman uses an unaccompanied solo at a very significant emotional moment in Chocolat (2000, Figure 10.8); Christopher Young uses solo fiddle in his score for The Gift (2000), illustrated in Figure 10.7. Although the music is totally exposed, Alex North begins his End Credits for Under the Volcano (1984) with a long solo-oboe passage, which enters after the film’s very emotional ending. Eventually the orchestra joins in, but not until the solo melodic line has made its statement, playing the tragic aftermath of the diplomat’s (Albert Finney’s) murder. Melodies with solo accompaniment often achieve the same intimate effect. The first eight bars of a cue from Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Planet of the Apes (1968) begin with a solo melody in the violins, accompanied only by log drums and a few electronic color chords (Figure 13.16, at 00:22:24). And in Nino Rota’s Finale for The Godfather (1971), he begins with FIGURE 13.13 The Matrix (1999)

On the track

330

© 1999 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 13.14 Dragonslayer (1981)

Composing

331

© 1981 by Famous Music Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 13.15 Dragonslayer (1981)

© 1981 by Famous Music Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

332

solo oboe on the theme, accompanied only by acoustic guitar (Figure 13.17).

TWO-VOICE TEXTURE A solo melody line can be enriched through the use of a second part moving in parallel motion with the melody, or a freely moving second part that mirrors the melody’s rhythmic motion. In The Omen (1976), Goldsmith uses two freely moving string lines in the first four bars of the scene in which the priest explains that he was there when the baby with Satan’s mark was born. Although the rhythms are basically identical, the melodic motion is often contrary, creating interesting intervals with varying degrees of tension (see Figure 13.18; the excerpt begins at 00:18:49, on Ambassador Thorn [Gregory Peek] after Father Brennan has left his office). John Williams uses this sort of contrapuntal texture at 00:06:49 into A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), after Professor Hobby (William Heard) says, “Didn’t God create Adam to love him?” (see Figure 13.19). And in Braveheart (1995) the first bars of FIGURE 13.16 Planet of the Apes (1968)

Composing

333

© 1968 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (Renewed) All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 13.17 The Godfather (1971)

© 1972 by Famous Music Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

334

James Horner’s Main Title are set for the 1st and 2nd violins. This cue begins at 00:00:45, after the Prelude music which scores the logos, on the move-in on the “Braveheart” title (see Figure 13.20). This occurs again at 00:02:02 on the cut to a medium close shot of a rider, as the V.O. continues “Scotland’s nobles fought him…” (see Figure 13.21), and in the cue at 00:20:44, after the line, “But he sends his greetings. I speak for all of the Brewsters in Scotland,” entering at 00:20:53. Whether accompanied with another solo instrument or not, two-voice writing is a melodic effect that can work well with a theme or as development. Horner uses this device over a pedal point figure in Brainstorm (see Figure 14.28). Two-Part Counterpoint The characteristic independence of simultaneous contrapuntal melodies provides excellent musical resources for the film composer. For Patton (1970), Jerry Goldsmith composed a march theme and a counterline, each independent, but combined contrapuntally. In his Main Title, first the organ plays the counterline, and then Goldsmith adds winds on the march theme (heard for the first time) while the organ repeats the counterline. (They are combined in Figure 13.22.) This is a prototypical usage of two-part counterpoint, harmonized with a simple and traditional chord progression. The same technique can be used within a more sophisticated or intense harmonic structure with chilling results, or may actually be used with no harmonic structure at all, allowing the “harmony” to exist as the combined effect of the two independent lines. By creating this theme and its independent counterline, Goldsmith had already begun to develop the melodic materials available for his score. This can help achieve the desirable balance of unity and variety, because the counterline actually functions as a separate theme that can also be considered a variation on the original theme. Melody and Bass Line as Two Independent Themes The score for Up the Down Staircase (1967, Karlin) has a theme for solo recorder that is designed to be accompanied by a bass line when the situation calls for it. Sometimes the bass line is played alone as an independent theme. Used in this way, the two melodies can work alone or together, with various orchestral colors. In Figure 13.23 they are shown together.

GIVING THE MELODY CHARACTER Many film themes sum up the essence of a film or its characters, thereby becoming the personification of the film. The vocal melody, sung by Lisa Gerrard, in Gladiator (2000, Hans Zimmer FIGURE 13.18 The Omen (1976)

Composing

335

© 1976 WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 13.19 A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

On the track

336

© 2001 Songs of SKG (BMI) and Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI). Worldwide Rights for Songs of SKG Administered by Cherry River Music Co. International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved FIGURE 13.20 Braveheart (1995)

Composing

337

© 1995 by Songicon Publishing Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. FIGURE 13.21 Braveheart (1995)

© 1995 by Songicon Publishing Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

On the track

338

FIGURE 13.22 Patton

© 1970 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (Renewed). All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 13.23 Up the Down Staircase

Composing

339

© 1967 Warner Bros. Inc. (Renewed) All rights reserved. Used by permission. and Lisa Gerrard) is relevant because the female voice is used to reflect the central character’s feeling of loss. The melody that accompanies the scene where Maximus (Russell Crowe) returns to his farm to find his wife and child murdered suggests the nonRoman ethnicity of the far-off reach of the Roman empire. Lisa Gerrard says, “They wanted me to be involved in specific areas of the film to bring the soul fabric to the loss of Russell’s family.” Zimmer describes the inspired session that produced this cue: “It was two o’clock at night and [director] Ridley [Scott] is sitting there, Lisa is there, we have a microphone, we put the scene on, I start playing, she starts singing, it’s one take. It just happened. It’s an improvisation.” The result is deeply personal and moving (see Figure 13.24; the excerpt begins at 00:44:41).

ADAPTING A THEME Many films have used existing music in their scores. In most cases the music is licensed for use as is, often with separate permission to use an existing master recording (see Chapter 25). Often, though, what sounds like the original may actually be an adaptation custom crafted to fit the film’s timings and needs. In Breaking Away (1979), the story of an imaginative teenager with a preoccupation with things Italian, composer Patrick Williams found when he began work on the picture that the film was already temped with Mendlessohn’s Italian Symphony and some Rossini: “There was no question about the fact that it worked. As it turned out, about half the score is original and half adapted. To make the Mendelssohn and Rossini fit I had to patch it up and turn corners to get to the right part of the music at the right spot. You have to play a game of taking the most

On the track

340

important moments and working backwards, maybe killing time by repeating bars, so you can hit the big moments at the right time.” Mark Snow had the opportunity to work with his well-known theme from the “XFiles” television series when he scored the first X-Files motion picture (1998). He had never really used this theme for thematic scoring during the series. “I thought, ‘Gee, there’s not much to this tune to go on.’ And then I said, ‘Of course there is. Look at all the possibilities. In the original piece there’s no harmony. You can do anything. It’s great!’”

HIT RECORDS One of the great things that can happen to you is to write what we used to call a “standard.” —Alexander Courage

Every composer would enjoy having gold records framed on his wall. Although filmmakers often hope for one or more hit songs for their movies, they aren’t averse to a hit instrumental if it happens—and it does, but very rarely. Most often these hit instrumentals are dependent on contemporary colors and rhythm for their impact (like Vangelis’s theme from Chariots of Fire (1981) and Harold Faltermeyer’s “Axel F” theme from Beverly Hills Cop (1984). If you are asked to write a hit, then that pressure becomes part of the assignment. Satisfy the needs of the film also, or you will do everybody a big disservice. John Williams didn’t score FIGURE 13.24 Gladiator

Composing

341

© 2000 SKG Songs (ASCAP) and Universal Music Corp. (ASCAP). Worldwide rights for SKG Songs administered by Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

On the track

342

Star Wars with a fusion band nor did he have any thought of writing a “hit.” He used a symphonic orchestra and approached his score with an eye toward providing the traditional dramatic values that would best support and enhance the film. The impact of his melodies, well supported by orchestral bravura, has brought his music for that film more recognition and performances than most record-oriented film themes and songs (see Chapter 25).

SCORES FOR STUDY The reader is urged to study on DVD or videocassette the illustrations cited in this chapter, some of which are listed below, as well as these further examples of the principles discussed. All timings cited are those on the DVD when released on that medium. The first number indicates the lapsed time in hours, the second the minutes, and the third seconds. Approximate timings are included for films only available on videocassette as of this writing, and are so indicated. Motifs Batman (1989, Danny Elfman). Beginning with the Main Title, Elfman works with various permutations of his 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-note motif, using these variations for punctuation, to hit the action, and to play Bruce Wayne’s character. A Beautiful Mind (2001, James Horner). View this score with a note pad, indicating the use of the two basic motifs used, with observations of their usage and function. Minority Report (2002, John Williams). “Robotic Spyders” (Figure 13.3, 01:17:52.5) introduces and develops a short motif for this very intense scene. Murder at 1600 (1997, Christopher Young). The opening three notes of the Main Title are a basic motif, used here and there throughout the score, both softly and accented. See also 00:08:50; and at 01:17:48 on the slow pan to reveal Spikings (Daniel Benzali) dead. North by Northwest (1959, Bernard Herrmann). This classic Alfred Hitchcock movie has a great score by Herrmann, who demonstrates in his Main Title music just how flexible and effective the use and development of a simple motif can be. The Score (2001, Howard Shore). There are two motivic themes in the Main Title,

Composing

343

used and developed in the score. Signs (2002, James Newton Howard). Howard makes fine use of motif and motivic development. The cues excerpted in Figures 13.4 (00:11:35) and 13.5 (00:38:11) are good examples of this, but there are others throughout the score. Unaccompanied Melody Chocolat (2000, Rachel Portman). See Figure 10.8 for Portman’s solo instrument statement at 01:42:43. The Gift (2000, Christopher Young). See Figure 10.7. Under the Volcano (1984, Alex North). North scores the ending of this drama with solo oboe d’Amore. Two-Voice Texture A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001, John Williams). See Figure 13.19. Braveheart (1995, James Horner). See Figures 13.20 and 13.21. The Fugitive (James Newton Howard). A two-voice passage starts at 00:12:54 on a C.U. of Kimble (Harrison Ford) walking from the courtroom after being sentenced. The Omen (1976, Jerry Goldsmith). Goldsmith has used two-voice passages in a number of scores, including the science fiction movie Logan’s Run (1976). See Figure 13.18 for a twovoice passage from The Omen (00:18:49). Giving the Melody Character These scores illustrate the use of melody to conceptualize and characterize the film and the central character(s). Classical Beethoven’s 2nd (1993, Randy Edelman). The title-character dog gets an appropriately classical theme for this comedy (first introduced at 00:01:52 during the Main Title). “Murder, She Wrote” (John Addison, 1st season 1984). The theme for this TV series, which still airs in syndication, captures the flavor of a baroque clavichord piece. ’night, Mother (1986, David Shire). Role modeled on the style of Vivaldi. Shakespeare in Love (1998, Stephen Warbeck). Set in sixteenth-century England, Warbeck is consistent in his use of a classical style, regardless of the dramatic moment. Tom Jones (1963, John Addison). A comedy set in eighteenth-century England, using classical styles blended with other influences. Ethnic Chocolat (2000, Rachel Portman). A mid-European gypsy flavor. The Godfather (1972, Nino Rota). A definitive use of ethnic melodies to score a dramatic film. See Figure 13.17 for one of the themes. Michael Collins (1996, Elliot Goldenthal). The composer says there is not that much

On the track

344

specific ethnic music in this dramatic score for a film about the Irish rebel leader in the early part of the twentieth century, but this is no generic score. You cannot use many cues in this score as temp music for another drama—it is subtly infused with the spirit of Celtic music. Snow Falling on Cedars (1999, James Newton Howard). Japanese influences help personalize this story about a JapaneseAmerican family. Titanic (1997, James Horner). The Irish roots of Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) are expressed in several of the themes. Evil The Magnificent Seven (1960, Elmer Bernstein). The relentlessly aggressive melody for the villains in this classic Western long ago became a role model. (See 00:02:09 for the first statement of this theme.) The Omen (1976, Jerry Goldsmith). The theme is stated in the Main Title with voices, “Ave Satani,” representing the malevolence of the devil and Damien, the Antichrist. Return of the Jedi (1983, John Williams). The Darth Vader theme is another definitive expression of evil. The melody is major mode, but the harmony is minor. Heroic Gettysburg (1993, Randy Edelman). Edelman’s heroic themes play the North and the South during this pivotal battle of the Civil War. His music for Gettysburg has since been used in countless temp tracks. Gladiator (2000, Hans Zimmer). The movie is set at the time of ancient Rome, but Zimmer’s heroic theme is timeless. Rudy (1993, Jerry Goldsmith). The theme for this story about a boy’s dream of playing football for Notre Dame sweeps you away, and has become another staple for temp tracks expressing the drive to excel against all odds. Star Wars (1977, John Williams). The main theme for Star Wars is a role model for epic heroic action. Period Heaven Can Wait (1978, Dave Grusin). Using the solo soprano saxophone with a twobeat feel, Dave Grusin gave this contemporary comedy a period flavor that characterized the central character, a football player taken to heaven before his time (Warren Beatty). By starting the melody on a major seventh, he adds a contemporary touch. The Mask of Zorro (1998, James Horner). Many costume dramas combine ethnic and period flavors. This score is a good example of a convincing blend, mixing Spanish and orchestral period music. Romantic The word “romantic” has many different musical implications depending upon the film

Composing

345

and the scene. In each of the following examples the director might very well have said to the composer, “Make it romantic.” The American President (1995, Marc Shaiman). Mainstream romantic, lush though often restrained, Shaiman’s music is a perfect fit for this film about a president facing the awkward experience of learning to date again. Basic Instinct (1992, Jerry Goldsmith). This story about a cold, calculating murderer who uses an ice pick on her victims would seem to resist a romantic theme, but Goldsmith provides a melody that not only captures the mystery, danger, and erotic nature of the film but links together the two lead characters (played by Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone) with music that reveals their version of romance (see Figure 14.4). Body Heat (1981, John Barry). Romantic in an intensely sensual, erotic way, suggesting film noir. Braveheart (1995, James Horner). The heartbreaking, shortlived romance in this thirteenth-century story of Scottish rebel William Wallace (Mel Gibson) is poignantly expressed with Horner’s modal melodies (see Figures 14.6 and 14.7). Dragonfly (2002, John Debney). This the story of a man (Kevin Costner) who has been told he has lost his wife in an accident in South America; driven by his love for her, he travels to South America to learn whether in fact she is truly dead. Debney used a somber approach to Costner’s romantic feelings under these circumstances. Message in a Bottle (1999, Gabriel Yared). Yared makes full use of his romantic theme for this story about a journalist seeking out a widower (Kevin Costner) in order to learn more about him only to find herself falling in love. A good example of the romantic theme is on the boat at 00:29:54. Out of Africa (1985, John Barry). A timeless version of a classical romantic approach.

On the track

346

14 USING HARMONY You find out that the unison is the strongest sound that you can make. And that the diatonic harmonies used in a sort of four-square way still provide a tremendous amount of strength. —Elmer Bernstein

FILM COMPOSERS HAVE AVAILABLE to them a wide range of harmonic resources, including: the traditional tertian-built harmonies, related to the major and minor scales of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the harmonies resulting from the contrapuntal practices of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and the expanded harmonic vocabulary of the twentieth century, during which time composers extended to the limit the chordal stacking of thirds, developed every option inherent in the circle of fifths progressions and their substitute-chord possibilities, plus a number of other harmonic approaches, including bitonality, polytonality, quartal harmony, pandiatonicism, twelvetone and set-theory technique, minimalism, and clusters. These harmonic approaches have all been utilized in varying degree by film composers, often within the same score.

HARMONIC LANGUAGES While the study of compositional techniques is beyond the scope of this book, it will be helpful to review the available harmonic languages and their film applications. Diatonic Harmony and Chromatic Harmony The reason diatonic and chromatic harmony (staples for more than two hundred years) are used so often for film music today is that they are still so communicative emotionally. You may be surprised to learn how many of the scores that sound so fantastic and complex when performed by a large orchestra and heard in a well-equipped theater are actually based on diatonic major scales and the most basic minor modes. It is possible to imply a harmonic tonality without ever explicitly stating it. In Road to Perdition (2002), Thomas Newman suggests B minor as the tonic of one of his primary themes without ever completely resolving to the tonic. The entire theme is centered on the dominant F-sharp triad, but the melody suggests B minor. One use of this theme is on Michael’s (Tom Hanks’) drive to Chicago. The cue begins after he tells his son to “try to get some sleep” (00:47:10) (see Figure 14.1). Harmony based more freely on chords built on thirds can be heard in Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Along Came a Spider (2001). One example is the passage that starts at 01:34:23 after Flannagan (Monica Potter) asks,

Composing

347

“Alex—How did you, um…” and Alex (Morgan Freeman) replies, “Ace is an ace, Jezzie. Plus, your timing was a little off.” The chords start on “little off” (see Figure 14.2). A chromatic approach fits film scores that deal with more sophisticated, sometimes historical, subjects. David Shire’s score for The Hindenburg (1975), about the German airship that exploded near New York City in 1937, utilizes the style of the post-romantic composers. The score for the miniseries Inside the Third Reich (1982, Karlin) uses both chromatic sequences and inversions with the third in the bass to evoke this same period of time in Germany (see Figure 14.3). Chromatic harmony is very useful for thrillers. Jerry Goldsmith established an unusually

Jerry Goldsmith. Photo: Alia. FIGURE 14.1 Road of Predition

On the track

348

© 2002 Songs of SKG (BMI). Worldwide Rights for Songs of SKG Administered by Cherry River Music Co. International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved.

Composing

349

On the track

350

FIGURE 14.2 Along Came a Spider

© 2001 by Ensign Music Corporation. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. FIGURE 14.3 Inside the Third Reich

Composing

351

© 1982. Reproduced by permission of American Broadcasting Music, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. sophisticated and sensuous harmonic language for Basic Instinct (1992), with his main theme created with downward moving parallel thirds. You hear this at the very beginning of the film, in his Main Title (see Figure 14.4). Modal Harmony The term “modal harmony” is a contradiction historically, because church modes, which were the foundation of European music through the Middle Ages, were purely melodic devices, predating harmony as a concept. Nonetheless, there is now a vocabulary of modal harmony using chords built on these modes, and it is of great use in film scoring. Music for period films set any time from before recorded history through the Middle Ages has usually been influenced by the modes. Nino Rota’s harmonic language (using the Aeolian mode) for Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (1968) shows this modal influence (see Figure 14.5). James Horner’s score for Braveheart (1995), set in thirteenth-century Scotland, uses modal harmony, including the themes that score the romance between William Wallace (Mel Gibson) and Murron (Catherine McCormack; see Figures 14.6 and 14.7). And in the mythic fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the

On the track

352

Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), the use of modal harmony is an ideal technique for Howard Shore’s score (see Figure 6.6). Much of the music brought to America by the settlers from Great Britain was modal, including many of the early American fiddle tunes. Because of this, modal harmony appears in many scores that have a central character whose ethnic background is significant (James Horner’s Titanic, 1997) or when the subject of the film is centered around an ethnic issue, as in the case of Michael Collins (1996, Elliot Goldenthal). Modal harmony also has many contemporary evocations. Techno music uses it. World music jazz composer/saxophonist Paul Winter uses it. Jazz musicians now have to distinguish between a minor blues and a minor modal blues—just calling a blues “minor” isn’t precise enough. Contemporary modal harmony has many film applications. The Lydian mode has been used many times to evoke a sense FIGURE 14.4 Basic Instinct

Composing

353

© 1992 StudioCanal Image S.A. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

FIGURE 14.5 Romeo and Juliet

354

Composing

355

© 1968 by Famous Music Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 14.6 Braveheart

© 1995 by Songicon Publishing Inc. International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved.

On the track

356

Composing

357

FIGURE 14.7 Braveheart (1995)

© 1995 by Songicon Publishing Inc. International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved.

On the track

358

of other-worldliness (see the discussion of “Polytonality”). Big space fantasy films such as John Williams’ scores for Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and small personal films with a science fiction/fantasy element like K-PAX (2001, Edward Shearmur) use a touch of this mode to suggest the presence of an alien being or element. “None of those decisions are made on any kind of conscious level, as far as I’m concerned,” Edward Shearmur explains. There is a film music language that comes from its own tradition and role models, which will trigger emotional responses in an audience because that audience has the same shared history of experience with the movies. “Obviously, as we all have grown up watching these films and listening to these great scores and absorbing their language, I think there is an inevitability that somewhere some of that language is going to pop out.” There isn’t that much of the Lydian mode in his score partly because the film itself isn’t a typical science fiction film. “The question early on was, ‘How much is this a sci-fi film and how much is this an internal drama?’” (See Figure 10.9). You will find many examples of modal harmony in Thomas Newman’s scores for films such as American Beauty (1999), and Pay It Forward (2000; see Figure 10.10). Pandiatonicism If all the pitches of a diatonic scale (for instance, the white keys of the piano) are used freely without the restrictions of traditional harmony, the resulting dissonances become pandiatonicism, the neoclassical harmonic language used by Stravinsky, Copland, Harris, and Honneger. By keeping these “wrong notes” within the diatonic scales, they sound dissonant but logical, more like errant passing notes and suspensions than harsh dissonances. Gustav Holst used this in the “Jupiter” section of his composition The Planets (a work often used as a role model for film scoring). Pandiatonicism works well when the drama involves a contemporary feeling of strength and Americana; the basic diatonic harmony gives a strong foundation, and the interesting combinations of notes inherent in this technique can add character and personality. John Williams’ score for The Patriot (2000) blends diatonic and chromatic harmony with pandiatonicism and modal harmonies. Ethnic Scales Different world cultures have scales associated with their music. Whereas one of the simple church modes suggests the British Isles, Australia, and American mountain music, other more exotic scales reflect other cultures. Rachel Portman suggests the wandering, gypsy-like quest of the central character in Chocolat (2000) with the use of the scale illustrated in Figure 14.8 (the cue starts as the mayor looks at the food on his desk at 00:17:53). Lalo Schifrin immediately suggests the Chinese heritage of Detective Inspector Lee (Jackie Chan) in his Main Title music for Rush Hour (1998; see Figure 21.12). Polytonality

Composing

359

The sound of two different keys playing simultaneously has become very prevalent in film scores. Polytonality is associated with Igor Stravinsky’s ballets Petroushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913). In fact, the two chords in Figure 14.9a are sometimes called the “Stravinsky” chords. Note that Figure 14.9b is a linear version of polytonality. See bar 1 of the cue from The Omen (1976) illustrated in Figure 16.11 for another example. In this case, Jerry Goldsmith uses the same chord for the string glisses. (This cue begins at 01:37:21, just before Robert Thorn [Gregory Peck] enters his bedroom.) Since the late seventies polytonality has been particularly associated with space films and action/adventure films like Superman (1978) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). John Williams uses it in Star Wars (1977). In Figure 14.10, the bass pedal point suggests one tonality, playing against the polytonality of the trumpet triads. Polytonality can add intensity and luster by enriching the harmonic language and adding tension to a powerful statement. In Gladiator (2000), Hans Zimmer uses polytonality in his battle and Coliseum sequences, in pieces such as “The Gladiator Waltz” (excerpted in Figure 7.1) and “Strength and Honor.” Listen to the opening battle sequence; this long cue begins on the fade in of the Dream Works logo, and the excerpt in Figure 14.11 begins at 00:06:08 after the commander says, “Archers, ready,” as the armies prepare for battle. Don Davis came to his concept for the use of polytonality in The Matrix (1999) through the film and its images. “The FIGURE 14.8 Chocolat (2000)

© 2000 by Miramax Film Music. All Rights Administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. FIGURE 14.9 “Stravinsky” chords.

On the track

360

trumpets are in triads, playing an E-major triad, and the horns are playing a G-major triad. And the trumpets start out pianissimo and crescendo to a triple forte within a bar. The next bar they decrescendo back to pianissimo and then back to triple forte. And the horns starts at triple forte and decrescendo to pianissimo and then crescendo to triple forte. So the trumpets are loud and then they decrescendo as the horns crescendo. I’ve got six horns so there are two on a part. The trumpets are one on a part.” The overlapping chords create a polytonal effect, with the primary tonality constantly shifting back and forth. Davis points out that the film was shot with an emphasis on images seen as reflections in mirrors, spoons, windows, and eyeglasses, all images meant to blur reality. “That seemed to be a reflective idea as well. You can hear this effect early in the film when Trinity is on the roof and she’s being pursued by the agents, and she sees a window far off, and the only way she can escape is to run, jump across a number of buildings, and jump in through that window (see Figure 14.12, at 00:05:07). Polytonality can be combined with another musical language for added impact. In Leadbelly (1975, Karlin), a dramatic biographical feature film about the legendary African American folk singer, the polytonal passages for orchestra and acoustic folkblues guitar reinforce Leadbelly’s terror as he tries to escape from the prison wardens and their dogs. This harmonic treatment places the blues lines in unfamiliar territory, giving this sequence added power (see Figure 14.13). The Lydian mode may also be used in a polytonal way, because the C Lydian mode (for example) includes major chords suggesting two different keys (in the following illustra-tion, both the C-major and D-major triads). As already mentioned, this particular mode is often used in the science fiction/ fantasy genre, and also for expressing a mystical or dreamlike quality, or in contrast, a grandiose or heroic quality. In a delicate setting it can suggest romance. Figure 14.14 is a four-bar excerpt from John Williams’ score for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). He used this motif throughout the score. (This excerpt occurs near the end of the departure scene, as the image of E.T. disappears into the spaceship at 01:53:04.)

Composing

361

Quartal Harmony Chords built on intervals of a fourth or fifth were utilized by Aaron Copland in his wellknown symphonic Americana ballets, including Billy the Kid (1938), Rodeo (1942), and Appalachian Spring (1943). Composers often utilize these chord structures when scoring films with an American theme. It is a harmonic language that sounds appropriate for traditional Westerns, the prototypical Americana. But, like the other harmonic techniques, quartal writing can be most interesting when applied to dramatic subjects that are not stereotyped. It can be used to sound slightly cool and detached even while being performed with passion—just the flavor Henry Mancini wanted for the moment in The Man Who Loved Women (1983) when the patient (Burt Reynolds) and his psychiatrist (Julie Andrews) make love for the first time (Figure 14.15). Many contemporary keyboard-oriented sounds have this harmonic flavor. In 1985 Thomas Newman used this harmonic FIGURE 14.10 Stars Wars (1977)

On the track

362

© 1977 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (50%) & Bantha Music. WarnerTamerlane administers on behalf of itself and Bantha Music. All rights reserved. Used by permission. language in his score for Desperately Seeking Susan, (see Figure 21.7). The impression is quartal because of the melodic intervals used (including the sixth and ninth), even though the harmony is actually diatonic. Twelve-Tone Technique Twelve-tone (or serial) technique was systematized by Arnold Schoenberg in the early 1920s to avoid any implication of a tonality. It is often used by film composers for moments of tangled texture and stress, one of the very effects this postWagnerian technique was attempting to achieve (as in Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night, composed in 1899 and one of his evolutionary pre-twelve-tone pieces). When desired, it can also give a pointillistic texture with much less overt tension (as in pieces by Alban Berg, Anton von Webern, and Pierre Boulez). David Shire found an interesting use of this harmonic language when he began working on The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974). He had done twelve-tone exercises in college, but composer Paul Glass had pointed out to him that you can use a row for any kind of music you want, depending on how you plan the row. The three diminished chords are a row, the four augmented chords are a row, the two whole-tone scales are a row. Shire describes his usage of the twelve-tone system on Pelham: “Pelham was one of the hardest pictures I ever had to crack. I wanted to get that dissonant-sounding jazz, but I didn’t want it to sound arbitrary. And I wanted some way of controlling it, because I couldn’t write forty minutes of music if I just had to find those dissonances by hunt and peck. At the last possible moment, I stayed up one night practically all night, and at three in the morning it suddenly occurred to me that maybe I could devise a row that sounded jazzy. So I made up a row that was all major thirds, minor seconds, and their inversions [see Figure 14.16], so that it had a lot of major sevenths in it, and whatever you did with it had the flavor that I was looking for, because those were all the main jazz intervals.

Composing

363

David Shire. “I made, for the first and only time in my life, one of those forty-eight box charts with the twelve transpositions of the row and the retrograde [see Figure 14.17], and propped it up on the piano and started doing this ostinato in the left hand that was a minor third, a minor second away from the basic tonality of the row, so it was related in a way to the row, and just started improvising to my heart’s content, just reading down those permutations. And whatever I played came out with that sound that I wanted. It was dissonant, but it had a logic. And I yelled, ‘Eureka!’ and after that, writing the score was really a lot of fun. “The theme starts with four groups of three notes each, which comprise the row. And then the four dissonant chords comprise the row, three notes each. The Main Title/End Title [see Figure 14.18] is almost a textbook use of a row. Once I had that material (and it took at least a month to have that breakthrough) it was relatively clear sailing from then on.” I haven’t done a totally serial procedure, but neither have the serial composers. But what difference does it make? No one can tell the difference. —Jerry Goldsmith

Jerry Goldsmith’s music for The Omen (1976) has the sound of twelve-tone procedures without being a strict application of the system. “That’s an example where I took the

On the track

364

[original] ostinato motif out of it and changed it by transposing the intervals and changing the rhythm and treating it in a quasi-serial way,” Goldsmith explains. Figure 14.19 is an excerpt from a scene near the end of the film in which Mrs. Baylock, the evil nanny, fights Damien’s father, Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck). This cue begins at 01:37:21, as Mrs. Baylock attacks Thorn. Figure 14.20 shows the bass ostinato figure that Goldsmith mentioned; it is from the final “Ave Satani.” The way in which he uses the ostinato elements in the fight scene is instructive. The original ostinato (in the bass voice of Figure 14.20) is clearly tonal, starting with a C minor tonality for the first few bars and then B-flat minor before returning to C minor. But within the original ostinato line are several half-step intervals (E-flat to D in bar 11, B to the C in the harmony above in bar 12, D-flat to C in bar 18), all of which he uses as intervallic elements in his music for the fight with Mrs. Baylock in Figure 14.19. These minor 2nd intervals are used in their minor 9th and major 7th inversions and extensions as well as in the original minor 2nd interval (they are found in every bar of Figure 14.19).

The slow-moving marchlike quarter-note cadence of the ostinato becomes, in the fight cue, a fast-moving eighth-note pattern (in bar 11). The quasi twelve-tone texture results from the dissonant intervals and the jagged melodic contours, more than from the fact that all 12 tones are actually heard in every bar until bar 11. In that bar only 10 pitches are used, the two omitted pitches significantly being the B and C leading-tone and tonic of the C tonal center inferred by the men’s and women’s voices who have just been singing prominent Gs and Cs. The woodwind figure in bar 6 also relates. The upper voice outlines a B7b5 as the lower voice outlines a Bb7b5, again employing the interval of the minor 2nd between the two groups of notes. Bar 10 is a typical twelve-tone procedure. All 12 tones derived from the intervals of the original bass ostinato are heard without duplications. Much of the rest of the cue is constructed in this way. To get the full impact of these relationships, listen to the closing “Ave Satani” cue (01:48:50) to hear the original ostinato, then listen to the cue that scores the fight with Mrs. Baylock (Figure 14.19). Whether used in technical strictness or not, the sense of twelve-tone lines and their resulting “harmonies” adds bite and tension to a film score when this quality is desired. It is interesting to note that serial music, along with many twentieth-century techniques, has yet to become popular with concert-going audiences, yet a huge audience has heard and been moved by such contemporary dissonant music in films where dramatic situations call for tension. Clusters Clusters are groups of three or more notes, either overlapping or struck simultaneously. They are more accurately described as “color accents” than a harmonic language. They fit in any context. They are used for orchestral color and mood, and for vary-

Composing

365

FIGURE 14.11 Gladiator (2000)

© 2000 SKG Songs (ASCAP) and Universal Music Corp. (ASCAP). Worldwide Rights for SKG Songs administered by Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

On the track

366

Composing

FIGURE 14.12 The Matrix (1999)

367

On the track

368

© 1999 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission. ing degrees of tension depending on the intervals used in the cluster. Short, accented clusters can have considerable percussive impact. (See Figures 14.21, 14.22, and 14.23 for examples of use of clusters. The cluster in the Dirty Harry example, Figure 14.21, occurs at 01:34:56; the Josey Wales cluster at 01:18:17). In his score for Alien (1979), Jerry Goldsmith introduces a soft 4-note string cluster in Reel 4, then expands the cluster during the next few bars (see Figure 14.22). John Williams uses 8 of the 12 notes within an octave in one bar of A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001). Not quite twelve-tone technique, not exactly a cluster, it suggests a bit of both. The cue starts at 00:15:33 during a close shot of David (Haley Joel Osment) peering over the breakfast table as Monica (Frances O’Connor) pours coffee. Figure 14.24 begins at 00:15:40, as Monica finishes putting sugar in her coffee and turns to walk across the kitchen.

HARMONY RESULTING FROM LINEAR WRITING The harmonies of Alex North and Jerry Goldsmith often result from their linear writing. Goldsmith describes the scene in The Omen in which Father Brennan first says, “Accept Christ! Accept Christ!” (00:17:33): “I think of it strictly linearly. What goes over it is probably counterpoint, but it’s another linear line written over it. As you’re going, you develop it rather than staying static in that tonality. You want to move somewhere else with it, whether it’s a sequential style or whatever. But it’s what you hear; I don’t particularly go at it harmonically—it’s what you hear in your head” (this reference begins at 00:18:49). The late Alex North explained his concept of a “three-layered construction” of musical lines. “It’s more of a linear blocking of one idea that covers the low range of the

Composing

369

orchestra, and a middle range, and a high range, and I put these together, and they come out either polytonal or polychordal.” It is possible to compose in this way using period lines from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as he did with The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965). The melodies have a period flavor, but when two or more of these melodies are played together the resultant harmony may be unpredictable. “The lines have their own individuality. They cause dissonances here and there.” In his score for The Dragonslayer (1981), North didn’t musically represent the Dark Ages, “except in the sense that I used fourths and fifths constantly.” These intervals, however, were

FIGURE 14.13 Leadbelly (1975)

On the track

370

“Old Riley” (In Dem Long Hot Summer Days), words and music by Huddie Ledbetter, collected and adapted by John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax. TRO—© 1936 (renewed 1964) and 1950 (renewed 1978) Ludlow Music, Inc, New York, N.Y. Used by permission. © 1975 by Ensign Music Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

371

On the track

372

surrounded and disguised by other intervals. Figures 13–14a, 13–14b, and 13–14c show three of North’s short motifs (or “cells”) working together.

HARMONIC PEDAL POINT AND OSTINATOS I consciously try not to use pedal point and ostinatos. But I know that they work. And the repetition does have a tendency to keep the music at a preconscious level in the audience’s ear. And to that extent it’s useful. But I like more harmonic movement than that. —Michael Melvoin

I use pedal point and ostinatos a lot—one of the three or four great tricks of all time. Talk about mood setting. —Mike Post

Pedal Point Pedal point is the repetition or sustaining of a single pitch (in any octave) while the chords change around it, and is used extensively in film music. Rhythmically, the pedal point can be sustained or highly rhythmic and accented. The harmonic language used with pedal point is usually diatonic/chromatic or modal, but any of the harmonic styles will work well in the right context. The repeated notes create a static feeling, but the accompanying moving chords can dissipate that illusion to some extent, especially if there is an increase and decrease of tension as the chords progress. Mark Snow introduces a variation of his theme from the television series “X-Files” over a pedal point figure used when Mulder (David Duchovny) is speaking on a cell phone to Scully (Gillian Anderson), trying to tell her he is locked in with a time bomb. The cue begins at 00:16:11; the excerpt at 00:18:43 after the bomb specialist says, “Is this what it looks like? Big I.E.D” (see Figure 14.25). In That’s Life! (1986), Henry Mancini composed a pedalpoint figure for two synthesizers, set in the middle of the orchestra, to convey a feeling of anxiety while Gillian (Julie Andrews) and the audience wait to learn if her biopsy is negative or positive (see Figure 14.26): “I used two keyboards on the same note, with slightly different sounds, repeating an eighth-note pattern. Used this way, it’s like playing a Bnatural and a C-flat on the harp at the same time—that kind of concept.” Mancini’s pedal point plays against shots of the biopsy-processing machine (the excerpt begins at 01:13:24). Michael Small used a repeated bass-note pedal-point figure in The Star Chamber (1983) to give an urgency and tension to the statement of the theme (a very useful function of pedal point). Figure 14.27 shows how this works in his Main Title, but the idea recurs throughout the score. There are several different uses of pedal point in James Horner’s score for Brainstorm (1983). One occurs as Mike (Christopher Walken) plays back Karen’s (Natalie Wood’s)

Composing

373

recorded emotions for the first time; the pedal point accompanies an important two-part motif played by the French horns and alto flutes (Figure 14.28, at 00:39:17). A short while later in the film, as he plays back the tape again at home, the harmony over the pedal point establishes a warmer, more reflective feeling as he begins to reminisce and fall in love with her again. In Elmer Bernstein’s score for The Magnificent Seven, he uses a sixteenth-note pedalpoint figure for some of the action sequences. Composed in 1960, the cue shown in Figure 14.29 is an excellent example of rhythmic pedal point for strings (00:05:40). Ostinatos These repeated figures are often (though by no means always) in the bass register. They may not contain obvious pedal point, but in most cases they do function as elaborate pedal points. This is because ostinatos usually reinforce one specific tonality, FIGURE 14.14 E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

On the track

374

© 1982 Songs of Universal, Inc. (BMI) All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 14.15 The Man Who Loved Women (1983)

Composing

375

© 1983 Golden Torch Music Corp. Used by permission. All Rights Reserved. FIGURE 14.16 The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

On the track

376

FIGURE 14.17 The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

FIGURE 14.18 The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

Composing

377

© 1974 United Artists Music Corp. Rights assigned to SBK Catalogue Partnership. All rights controlled by SBK U Catalog Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

FIGURE 14.19 The Omen (1976)

378

Composing

379

© 1976 WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

380

Composing

FIGURE 14.20 The Omen (1976)

381

On the track

382

© 1976 WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 14.21 Dirty Harry (1972)

© 1971 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (Renewed) All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 14.22 The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

Composing

383

© 1976 WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 14.23 Alien (1979)

On the track

384

© 1979 Warner-Tamerlane Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

385

FIGURE 14.24 A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

© 2001 Songs of SKG (BMI) and Warner- Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI). Worldwide Rights for Songs of SKG Administered by Cherry River

On the track

386

Music Co. International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved. FIGURE 14.25 X-Files: Fight the Future (1998)

© 1998 T C F Music Publishing, Inc. (ASCAP). Used by permission. All rights reserved. which to the ear becomes the pedal point. However, it would be possible to create an ostinato based on a twelve-tone row, or created with an unpredictable rhythmic length playing through the bar lines in order to diminish the pedal-point effect, making all the notes more equal in importance. James Newton Howard’s score for The Fugitive (1993) has a one-bar ostinato in the piano during the exciting stairway chase, illustrating a very rhythmic use of the technique. The cue begins at 01:18:58 after Kimble (Harrison Ford) finishes his jail visit with a prisoner and says, “Listen, pal, I wish I could but I can’t. I’m sorry.” The excerpt shown in Figure 14.30 starts at 01:20:44, during the chase, as Kimble sees Sam (Tommy Lee Jones) and turns to run away. Howard composed a four-note motif for The Fugitive that functions as a basso continuo (a repeated bass figure above which the music develops). It is heard the first time as we pan the river to reveal Kimble’s head above water (00:40:25; see Figure 14.31). It is reprised when Kimble has died his hair, on the

Composing

387

cut to him walking at 00:44:15 (see Figure 14.32). In Figure 14.32 the developing music above the repeated bass line brings variety to the cue. Even though an ostinato is a repeated figure, it doesn’t necessarily create a static effect. Jerry Goldsmith begins a cue in his score (at 01:39:00) for Hollow Man (2000) with an ostinato during the long final confrontation sequence, after Linda (Elisabeth Shue) says, “Come on—I heard an explosion,” as she and Matthew (Josh Brolin) run. The ostinato changes slightly as the music develops, and then it is transposed to a new pitch at bar 15, another excellent way to bring variety and development to this technique. (See Figure 14.33.) James Horner created a 4-note motif for A Beautiful Mind (2001) that often functions as an ostinato. This is used over the wedding montage (at 54 minutes into the film), as well as elsewhere throughout the score. In this case, the ostinatos are harmonized, thereby creating a chaconne. Because ostinatos are usually rhythmic in nature, they are also discussed in Chapter 15.

USING HARMONY FOR CHARACTERIZATION The composer must decide on a harmonic language for the characters, keeping in mind the place, the period, and what, if any, FIGURE 14.26 That’s Life! (1986)

On the track

388

© 1986 Golden Torch Music Corp. Used by permission. All rights reserved. impact these factors have on the characters and the drama. Then he must develop a harmonic language for the dramatic situation. For instance, if the people are simple and folksy, their harmonic language might well be simple, folk-music harmonies and progressions. If the setting and overview are similar, then one harmonic language might suffice, but if these same people are in a life-or-death circumstance or some other personal crisis, the harmonic choices for that aspect of the drama may be more complex and dissonant. The contrast of harmonic languages would tend to accentuate the bizarre, out-of-the-ordinary aspect of the people’s lives. The contrast of two harmonic languages in a film score can bring drama to the score; the effectiveness of this technique can be studied in Leonard Rosenman’s score for East of Eden (1955, starring James Dean). Capturing a Character’s Spirit with the Harmony A good test for a theme is to play it without harmony; a good test for a harmonic language is to play it without the theme. If it works for the film without melody, it’s a good sign that it’s an appropriate progression for the scene. Subtle Harmonic Variations

Composing

389

Harmony faithful to a character’s tastes and lifestyle will help relate the score to the film. If you can imagine the character listening to classical music, then a classical approach to harmony could be perfect. If the leading character is a teenager, then the harmonic language heard in the music she likes might be useful. But keep in mind that if these tastes are fairly superficial, then there might be a more important, deeper quality to the character that should be reflected in the music, and therefore in the harmony. The choice of an appropriate harmonic language is significant. Georges Delerue recalls selecting his harmonic language for the sixteenth-century period film A Man for All Seasons (1966): “For me it was absolutely impossible to use a nineteenth-century chord progression. For example, I didn’t use a dominant seventh or diminished seventh ever. But open fourths and fifths. And used in a similar way as the authentic period music, but with more instruments. Triads, sometimes without the third. I had the feeling it would be completely wrong if I used something out of character.” FIGURE 14.27 Star Chamber (1983)

On the track

390

© 1983 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (50%) & Sprocket Music (50%). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

FIGURE 14.28 Brainstrom (1983)

391

On the track

392

© 1983 April Music Inc. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film Co. All rights controlled and administered by April Music Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

Composing

FIGURE 14.29 The Mangificent Seven (1960)

393

On the track

394

© 1960 United Artists Music Group. Rights assigned to SBK Catalogue Partnership. All rights controlled by SBK U Catalog Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Breaking the Rules Burt Bacharach’s score for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) doesn’t totally ignore period and place—in fact, his waltz theme has a very period flavor. Bacharach

Composing

395

went for the spirit of the film: whimsical; free and loose; contemporary attitudes that contrasted with period, place, and settings; and, ironically, the contrast of the old and the new in the depiction of the death of a lifestyle due to “progress” in the American West. So the score for this nontraditional Western has a contemporary pop song (“Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” with Hal David’s lyrics); a series of chases in South America scored with up-tempo, jazz-oriented scat singing role modeled on the popular recordings of that time by the Swingle Singers; and a waltz theme blending period and contemporary elements. The harmony is deliberately not slavishly related to the time or place. This anachronistic approach depends upon the musical concept being solid and emotionally appropriate for the film. Paul Newman and Robert Redford, wisecracking to the end, were not playing prototypical John Wayne and Gary Cooper characters. Bacharach sought to capture this dauntless spirit, not the time or place. Some purists did not appreciate this approach at that time, whereas other viewers liked it a lot. FIGURE 14.30 The Fugitive (1993)

On the track

396

© 2000 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI) and WB Music Corp. (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

FIGURE 14.31 The Fugitive (1993)

397

On the track

398

© 2000 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI) and WB Music Corp. (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

James Newton Howard. Photo: Alison Dyer.

USING HARMONY AS A THEME

Composing

399

The structure of James Newton Howard’s score for Grand Canyon (1991) is based on a four-bar chord sequence. Although the top voice of each chord delineates a melody, it is the harmonic sequence that is the theme. We have seen that James Horner’s score for A Beautiful Mind (2001) achieved something of the same effect with his chordal motif. In Grand Canyon, Howard’s chord progression is the foundation for his score, unifying the many disparate elements of this film. “I put that throughout the movie in unexpected places, in the middle of conversations when things would shift slightly. So that was really the tent pole of the score. Once I had that done I had the basic structure of the score in place. That immediately saved me from being so totally episodic that the score would have no cohesive quality.” His instrumental choices for setting this theme (keyboards, electric bass, synthesizer, guitar, percussion) are also part of his overall concept, giving his chord progression an even more contempo rary flavor (see Figures 21.1a and b). Howard brought this same point of view to his score for Snow Falling on Cedars (1999). He notes, “It’s probably the least linear movie I’ve ever done.” If Grand Canyon was episodic, Snow Falling on Cedars was even more so, with its constantly changing points of view and flashbacks seen through the eyes of various characters in the film. “I would say again that there was one primary eight-bar chord sequence that was really the center of the score. That was a specific reference to Grand Canyon which [director] Scott Hicks had referenced when he asked me to do the movie. Grand Canyon had been a score that had influenced him a lot. He’d used it in a number of his films as temp music and he was interested in that same kind of impact, so of FIGURE 14.32 The Fugitive (1993)

© 2000 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI) and WB Music Corp. (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

400

course that can be the greatest challenge of all, to recreate something you’ve done before without it sounding like the same thing.” Howard’s score for Snow Falling on Cedars is very effective, unique, and unlike Grand Canyon or any other score with ethnic influences (the film is the complex story of a boy who falls in love with a JapaneseAmerican girl, recounted later from their perspective as adults). (See Figure 14.34; the cue begins at 00:30:01, the excerpt at 00:30:14.)

TENSION Generally speaking, an increase in dissonance equates with an increase in tension. Though Laurence Rosenthal’s score for the epic television miniseries Peter the Great (1986) uses a great deal of Russian folk music as a role model, he remembers that “the music got really quite twentieth century. In some of the later scenes the story really begins to get frightening with the halfsister, Sophie, trying to poison the mind of Peter’s son. And later on, during the scenes of the interrogation and torture of Peter’s son, the music is full of bitonality, tone clusters, and all the rest of it. At that point I really felt the only thread that remained [from the period sound] was the echo of the church, which was always there.” Composers frequently increase harmonic tension as the dramatic tension increases. In Gerald Fried’s score for the docudrama I Will Fight No More Forever (1975), about Chief Joseph of the Nez Pierce Indians, much of the thematic material is developed from his thorough research of the various Indian chants and melodies. But, as he points out, “When you get into intense drama, terror, and fright, the music becomes much more atonal, or polytonal, and that’s what happens here. The themes were quite modal and monochromatic, and as the drama intensified, I wrote bitonality, polytonality, clusters, etc.” This approach works on an overall level, as a way of harmonically coloring greater tension in the drama with greater tension in the score. Sometimes this results in certain cues being much more harmonically complex and dissonant than others. But you can also have waves of harmonic tension rising and falling within the scene. Tension and Release Michael Small’s score for The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) is set with a relatively dense and dissonant harmonic language, which is introduced in his Main Title (see Figure 14.35). Small calls the thematic passage beginning at bar 20 “thirties romantic.” Yet within that framework for his score, Small sparingly chose those moments in which to use a greater degree of harmonic tension. When you see the film, listen to the buildup of harmonic tension when Cora (Jessica Lange) subtly suggests that she and Frank (Jack Nicholson) murder her husband (00:33:05). The film’s few lighter moments stand out in bold contrast, because the score’s overall attitude is quite dark. Even when Cora and Frank first make love in the kitchen, the music begins slowly, with a dark feeling, and progressively gets more and more passionate as their lovemaking gets more intense. The harmony continues to provide the tension that characterizes their relationship (00:17:42; the excerpt begins at 00:19:22; see Figure 14.36). Finally, after they make

Composing

401

love, the harmony becomes relatively simple and more consonant. Later in the film, when Cora has left town and Frank is alone, the harmony is more consonant (01:30:56). When she returns and they dine by candlelight, the harmonic language (which is diatonic) is again more “comfortable” (01:39:03). As they get married the harmony is also consonant, and in the final cue, as he weeps over her dead body, the harmony is triadic (01:56:49). The emotional impact of these musical moments is heightened by the harmonic tension that surrounds them. In The Verdict (1982), as the attorney (Paul Newman) tells Laura (Charlotte Rampling), “It’s over—and it’s my fault,” Johnny Mandel begins his cue with a single line, which grows to two lines, and then continues to expand, getting progressively more and more harmonically intense. It is the harmony that makes the emotional statement (see Figure 14.37). Harmonic tension can also be used without relief, created with a consistently high level of dissonance. You can hear an example of this in Howard Shore’s score for Naked Lunch (1991), in the cue that starts in the bedroom of Bill (Peter Weller) and his wife (Judy Davis) after he has injected drugs into FIGURE 14.33 Hallow Man (2000)

On the track

402

© 2000 Colpix Music, Inc. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

Composing

FIGURE 14.34 Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)

403

On the track

404

© 1999 Universal—MCA Music Publishing, A Division of Universal Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. his wife’s leg. Figure 14.38 starts just before he shoots at the glass on top of his wife’s head and plays through the rest of the scene as he realizes she is dead.

SCORES FOR STUDY The reader is urged to study on DVD or videocassette the illustrations cited in this chapter, some of which are listed below, as well as these further examples of the principles discussed. All timings cited are those on the DVD when released on that medium. The first number indicates the lapsed time in hours, the second the minutes, and the third seconds. Approximate timings are included for films only available on videocassette as of this writing, and are so indicated. Harmonic Languages

Composing

405

The following contain uses of harmony in film scoring that serve as representative examples: Modal American Beauty (1999, Thomas Newman) ; Braveheart (1995, James Horner); Cocoon (1985, James Horner); Dave (James Newton Howard, 1993, lydian at the beginning of the film); The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001, Howard Shore); Scent of a Woman (1992, Thomas Newman, the Main Title); Shrek (2001, Harry GregsonWilliams and John Powell, the beginning of the film); Titanic (1997, James Horner). Pandiatonicism The Patriot (2000, John Williams). Ethnic scales Chocolat (2000, Rachel Portman); Gladiator (2000, Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard, the vocal lines); The Mask of Zorro (1998, James Horner); Rush Hour (1998, Lalo Schifrin); The Sum of All Fears (2002, Jerry Goldsmith). Polytonality Gladiator (2000, Hans Zimmer); The Matrix (1999, Don Davis); Star Wars films (John Williams). Twelve-tone technique The Omen (1976, Jerry Goldsmith); The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974, David Shire). Harmonic Pedal Point Glory (1989, James Horner). Pedal point begins at 00:47:24 as a guard begins flogging the prisoner (Denzel Washington); the music starts with solo trumpet over a string line and timpani quarters notes. The Hurricane (1999, Christopher Young). Pedal point occurs at 00:07:57 “Paterson, New Jersey, 1966”; begins with electronics after the shots, as Rubin is pulled over and the police and Rubin talk to the dying man. The entire cue beginning at 00:45:25 is pedal point; and again at 01:47:20 after they learn about the Dode Monaco car lights, through the evidence montage. Mission Impossible (1996, Danny Elfman). Pedal point at 00:10:34 when Ethan (Tom Cruise) is at the computer; later at 01:00:36 to 01:00:50. Speed (1994, Mark Mancina). Pedal point at 01:04:22 after Jack (Keanu Reeves) says “Floor it!” and the bus speeds up. This effect starts with a soft bass pulse and builds.

On the track

406

X-Files: Fight the Future (1998, Mark Snow). A cue begins at 00:16:11 while Mulder (David Duchovny) is speaking on a cell phone to Scully (Gillian Anderson), trying to tell her he is locked in with a time bomb. Pedal point begins at 00:18:00 after a long pause in the music, just after Mulder says, “You know that face I just showed you? I’m makin’ it again.” Harmonic Ostinatos A Beautiful Mind (2001, James Horner). Horner’s score includes basic motivic material that functions as a harmonic ostinato. Hollow Man (2000, Jerry Goldsmith). Goldsmith creates a long cue based on an ostinato, begin at 01:39:00. Notice how he develops this ostinato, changes to a new pitch (see Figure 14.33). FIGURE 14.35 The Post Always Rings Twice (1981)

© 1981 Roliram Music (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

407

On the track

408

FIGURE 14.36 The Post Always Rings Twice (1981)

© 1981 Roliram Music (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

FIGURE 14.37 The Verdict (1982)

409

On the track

410

© 1982 WB Music Corp. & Rewind Music, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 14.38 Naked Lunch (1991)

Composing

411

© 1990 South Fifth Ave. Publishing (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

412

Using Harmony for Characterization East of Eden (1955, Leonard Rosenman). This James Dean film has a great score by Rosenman, in which he uses two har-monic languages, one for the personal, intimate moments and another for the more intense moments of conflict and anguish.

Composing

413

Using Harmony as a Theme Grand Canyon (1991, James Newton Howard). Howard’s main thematic material is used as a 4- or 8-bar chord progression, functioning as a chordal motif (see Figures 21.1a and b and 21.2). Snow Falling on Cedars (1999, James Newton Howard). Howard employs a similar technique in this score to unify the film’s nonlinear storytelling. Tension Select several genre films (thrillers, suspense, horror) and listen for the score’s use of tension and release throughout the film.

On the track

414

15 USING RHYTHM The first thing I do when I lay out an outline is to get my rhythm, my overall motion going. —Gerald Fried

In Airport 1975, the thing I came up with first was the background rhythm to the main theme, which I used often throughout the picture. Rhythm first, then harmony, then melody. —John Cacavas

I think the key thing that made The Magnificent Seven go was a particular sort of rhythmic energy. —Elmer Bernstein

TEMPO AND PULSE Every film has a rhythm—a pace—and either supporting or playing rhythmic counterpoint to that inherent pulse is one of a film score’s prime functions. We are assuming that some basic decisions regarding tempo and pulse already have been or are now being made (see Chapter 12). But there still remain the decisions of how to play (or not to play) a pulse on each cue. How rhythmic will the music be? Will it be energetic and active during an action sequence—perhaps a chase or a gunfight? Or will it be relatively motionless without stating the pulse in any direct way? Jerry Goldsmith emphasizes that “getting the tempo of the music for a scene is so important. And noticing how the phrases and music catch the cuts. And sometimes it’s a happy accident that the film is so well edited that you can get a tempo and the phrases seem to fit and smoothly go along with the action.” The basic pulse for a sequence (or pulses if there are shifts in dramatic emphasis) can be expressed electronically, by any instrument in the orchestra, or a blend of both. The rhythmic pulse expressed by an intense Bach fugue or the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is powerful and propelling, as is in a different way a compelling rock song or techno dance tune. It is common practice to use electronic and acoustic percussion elements rhythmically along with acoustic orchestral forces. But many times an orchestra will be responsible for the rhythmic drive of a cue or score. John Williams uses the orchestra in this way in his score for Minority Report (2002), in which the string section drives the music forward.

Composing

415

One such moment is when the robotic “spyders” seek out all humans to identify them by scanning their eyes. Figure 15.1 shows Williams’ basic motif for this cue, which begins at 01:17:53. There are other electrifying moments in this score that illustrate this technique, including the sequence near the beginning of the film when John Anderton (Tom Cruise) races to prevent a crime from occurring (00:12:27); after the scene with Witwer and Anderton in the elevator, as Anderton runs (00:42:36); and when Anderton breaks away to escape. (See Figure 15.1 for an excerpt from Anderton’s escape. This excerpt begins at 00:43:58, as Anderton kicks open the vehicle window after he says, “Everybody runs.”) When the music doesn’t require such a strong forward drive, rhythmic elements might be orchestrated in a much more subtle way. In the excerpt illustrated in Figure 14.4, Goldsmith scored his Basic Instinct (1992) Main Title with motion in the violins and harp. Danny Elfman assigned larger orchestral forces to keep the motion going and express the pulse of the music while accompanying his Main Title theme for Edward Scissorhands (1990; see Figure 6.8).

SKETCHING THE RHYTHMS Avoid the quicksand of detail during the early stages of composing as it will drag you down. During this stage, there are many times when you may feel a rhythmic flow without knowing exactly which pitches will be used. If you hear pitches right away, fine. But you can sketch first using slashes without note heads to fill in whatever seems rhythmically appropriate, indicating specific accents that you may feel. Later you can fill in any notes or bars that are elusive on the first pass. As an example, Figure 15.2 is a hypothetical pitchless sketch of an excerpt from one of Hans Zimmer’s cues for Gladiator (2000), which is quoted in full in Figure 15.3 (Zimmer didn’t create the cue using this process, but it’s a helpful illustration.)

THE PERCUSSION SECTION AND ELECTRONICS The instruments in the percussion family can add both color and rhythm to a composition. The simplest and most abstract expression of rhythm in film writing is scoring with percussion only, and in such cases the entire thrust of the passage is rhythmic. In The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), a Clint Eastwood Western, Jerry Fielding used only the percussion section on various drums to score a cue near the end of the film. Tan Dun scored several of the major fight sequences in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) solely with various drums, and Danny Elfman emphasized percussion in his score for Tim Burton’s remake of Planet of the Apes (2001). Edward Shearmur used mallet instruments as one of his “sections” in the orchestra for his K-PAX (2001) score. “We did a big session on one of the orchestral days with three or four mallet players. We had 2 glockenspiels, 2 xylophones, sometimes two people on one instrument on marimbas and xylophones.” He did some electronic processing to these instruments after the live scoring session.

On the track

416

Thomas Newman uses electronics and percussion in some of his scores. American Beauty (1999) relies heavily upon mallet sounds; Pay It Forward (2000) features a very percussive, driving piano performance alternating with subtle steel drum sounds; The Player (1992) has a variety of abstract percussion sounds that complement this film’s unique combination of a Hollywood satire blended with the murder mystery genre. In all these cases, Newman’s use of these colors and techniques adds a rhythmic element to his scores. Percussion and/or a combination of rhythm instruments (guitars, bass, keyboards, drum set) is often used when a contemporary feel is appropriate within the orchestra (see Chapter 21). Hans Zimmer used electronics to propel the action in Black Rain (1989), and Mark Mancina’s score for Speed (1994), which effectively fused percussion and rhythm with the orchestra, contributed to that sound’s popularity. Since then, scores have routinely use percussion and electronics (see Chapter 20). FIGURE 15.1 Minority Report (2002)

Composing

417

© 2002 Songs of SKG (BMI). Worldwide Rights for Songs of SKG Administered by Cherry River Music Co. International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved.

On the track

418

Composing

419

Ethnic Percussion A group of ethnic percussion instruments creates an excellent color for an abstract rhythmic statement; combining ethnic colors with traditional percussion like timpani works very well. Timpani, xylophone, marimba, bells, and vibes all have specific pitches, of course. Lalo Schifrin makes good use of ethnic percussion in his score for Rush Hour (1998); some instruments were prerecorded prior to his orchestra sessions and some were recorded live on the scoring stage (see Figure 21.13).

THE ORCHESTRA AS RHYTHM Film scores are often required to bring propulsion and drive to a film, so this is a vital film-scoring technique. Frequently, figures are written for the orchestra that are essentially rhythmic. FIGURE 15.2 Gladiator (2000)

On the track

420

© 2000 SKG Songs (ASCAP) and Universal Music Corp. (ASCAP). Worldwide rights for SKG Songs administered by Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. FIGURE 15.3 Gladiator (2002)

© 2000 by SKG Music Publishing LLC. and Universal. All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 15.4 The Sum of All Fears (2002)

Composing

421

© 2002 by Ensign Music Corporation International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

On the track

422

Composing

423

Sometimes they are scored as unisons, sometimes they are harmonized in some way, but the thrust is single-mindedly rhythmic. Minority Report (2002) offers many examples of this. Similarly, this device occurs in the passage from Elmer Bernstein’s score for The Magnificent Seven (see Figure 14.29). Jerry Goldsmith establishes a rhythmic pattern (or motif) for The Sum of All Fears (2002) that plays as the primary musical material in places, and as rhythmic underpinning elsewhere. In the few bars in Figure 15.4, he assigns this motif to snare drum, then adds cellos, and then woodwinds and violins. Woodwinds then continue while the French horns and trumpets play a thematic line harmonized in thirds. In The Fugitive (1993) when Dr. Kimble (Harrison Ford) is pursued by Sam (Tommy Lee Jones) through Chicago’s sewer system, James Newton Howard’s score moves the action forward with rhythmic patterns in the orchestra (see Figures 15.5a and b, beginning on the first cut to Kimble running through the sewer at 00:35:02). In Romancing the Stone (1984), at one point during the final confrontation, Alan Silvestri uses a repeated-note idea harmonized in the strings. Figure 15.6 illustrates the first four bars of this passage; the chords change in the strings as the passage continues to develop, but the rhythmic idea remains the same.

RHYTHM AS A THEMATIC IDEA I chose a rhythm, or a series of rhythms, and just kept at it, establishing a pulse that was almost irresistible. I wanted just to have the texture thematic.

On the track

424

—Gerald Fried

The television movie Son Rise: A Miracle of Love (1979) is the story of a young couple who have an autistic child. Everyone told them that there was no hope for the child—that he would always be autistic. But they wouldn’t give up. They put aside their careers in advertising and nurtured him, getting into the crib and rocking with him in sync with his autistic motions. Little by little the child was cured with this method. Gerald Fried scored the film. “The first thing I did was to try to establish a rhythm in this seemingly aimless rocking. There was a rhythm inside this boy’s head. It may not have looked very organized to an observer, but I chose a series of rhythms that the orchestra played. Partially an electronic cluster, partially woodwinds—it was a light sound, but insistent. A glassy, translucent sound. It had lots of light in it, and it just kept on. There was never a letup of the rocking motion in one way or another till it traveled around the orchestra. No theme. A theme actually would have destroyed what I was trying to do.” Mark Mancina established a short rhythmic motif in Speed (1994) that becomes in itself thematic. You can hear this at 00:36:04, and elsewhere throughout his score.

RHYTHMIC OSTINATOS I’ll either get some thematic idea and take a fragment of it and develop it into an ostinato, or sometimes I’ll take the ostinato and develop it into a theme. —Jerry Goldsmith

All ostinatos are rhythmic; some are just more rhythmic than others. Because the sense of tonality is static in a passage with FIGURE 15.5 The Fugitive

Composing

425

© 2000 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI) and WB Music Corp. (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 15.6 Romancing the Stone (1984)

On the track

426

© 1984 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (50%) & Sprocket Music Inc. (50%). All rights reserved. Used by permission. one or more ostinatos, the device is frequently used either as a way of expressing that single harmonic idea with forward motion (see Chapter 14), or simply as a highly rhythmic device. As such, it is an ideal technique for contemporary music of all sorts, and can often be of dramatic use in scoring. An early electronic example is Tangerine Dream’s score for Thief (1981), in which mid-low register ostinatos, established at the beginning of the film, represent the score’s primary material. Jerry Goldsmith uses ostinatos throughout his score in The Omen (1976). In the “Ave Satani” at the end of the film, the voices begin, accompanied by a string drone. In bar 11, organ, strings, and low woodwinds begin another ostinato, which be-

Composing

427

FIGURE 15.7 The Omen (1976)

© 1976 WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

FIGURE 15.8 Along Came a Spider (2001)

428

Composing

429

© 2001 by Ensign Music Corporation. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. comes an accompaniment for the voices beginning in bar 13 (Figure 15.7a). This ostinato also develops, changing slightly in bar 29 (Figure 15.7b), and there is further orchestral development in bar 37 (Figure 15.7c). The rhythmic pulse continues throughout but the harmonic and melodic elements develop, adding depth and variety to the repetitive effect of the music. (This cue begins at 01:48:50.)

UNEVEN AND CHANGING METERS You can shift meters in a cue without necessarily changing its pulse. This gives variety to the rhythmic effect by slightly changing the emphasis of the basic accents. Goldsmith uses changing meters frequently in his scores, including Along Came a Spider [2001], creating alternate metric patterns such as 3/4, 7/8, 5/8, 7/8 (Figure 15.8) and 2/4+5/8 (Figure 15.9). He has been integrating these uneven and changing meters into his scores for many years, and this rhythmic device has become increasingly popular with the flexibility and ease of use of such devices as the Auricle to map out complex metric patterns. (Figure 15.8 begins at 00:56:41, on Alex’s [Morgan Freeman’s] P.O.V. car lights turning off; Figure 15.9 begins at 00:57:28 as Soneji gets out of a police car.)

POLYRHYTHMS There are times when rhythmic precision may not be ideal. Polyrhythms provide a blurred and less synchronous rhythmic feel, which can be an effective approach in some film situations. Graeme Revell used this technique in Collateral Damage (2002). “It’s when Arnold [Schwarzenegger] was preparing for the journey, a big montage scene where he starts to go down through Panama to Columbia. It starts in his office where he’s got the maps on the wall, he goes through a bunch of documentary footage, and then

On the track

430

walking and then into the town. That one was quite polyrhythmic. There’s a guitar which I brought in, which is in three, and then the orchestra’s playing across it in four, and the percussion’s in five. And the orchestra needed to hear it one time just to get the sense of needing to play legato across the rhythm.” Music for this sequence begins at 00:25:23 on the cut to a hand knocking on Gordy’s (Schwarzenegger’s) door. Aleatoric Passages All music that offers the performer some freedom of choice is considered aleatoric, but there are potentially several levels of freedom. The performer’s part might be aleatoric rhythmically but with the notes prescribed. Or, the performer might be free to play notes of his choosing (but perhaps within a certain specific range, say from middle C to the Fsharp above) in any order with any rhythmic values he desires. Or, the music could be even less organized, with instructions to play anything the musician wishes for a certain duration of time, perhaps in a specified register (low, medium, or high on the instrument, for example). If the rhythms are free, which leads to a polyrhythmic effect, the composer gives instructions about other performance aspects (i.e., accents, glisses, or trills.) Mark Snow explains his notation of short aleatoric passages as used in his score for X-Files: Fight the Future (1998): “They have instructions written down rather than notes, over a certain amount of bars with crescendos and just a big diamond with a note that says, ‘Play as many notes as humanly possible starting from pianissimo to triple forte.’ And then, ‘Accent here,’ and then ‘The lowest note you have,’ ‘The highest note,’ The softest thing,’ ‘Everyone trill,’ ‘Everyone flutter.’ “Some examples of this include 00:06:35 as the kid plays with a skull and liquid oozes up from the ground onto his feet; at 01:30:45 as the camera moves in on the hole in the ice; FIGURE 15.9 Along Came a Spider (2001)

Composing

431

© 2001 by Ensign Music Corporation. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

On the track

432

Composing

433

at 01:33:21 as Mulder (David Duchovny) sees the mother ship; and at 01:33:43 as Mulder begins to fall. If the musicians are skilled and are directed properly, these aleatoric (improvised) passages can become a polyrhythmic web of motion. John Corigliano utilized many of these techniques in his score for Altered States (1980; see Figure 16.8 for an excerpt from the complete orchestration of this score. The excerpt begins at 00:31:48). In Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), John Williams uses a short aleatoric passage beginning in bar 14 of the cue during which the young boy, Barry, is drawn away from the house to the spaceship. This effect starts during the shot of the spaceship after Barry’s mother (Melinda Dillon) has grabbed her son to bring him inside. In bar 14 the strings are rhythmically free. The cellos and double basses continue in bar 15, joined by the trombones in bar 16. Figure 15.10 is reproduced from Herb Spencer’s original handwritten orchestration. This score is an example of the way handwritten film music looks when delivered to the copyist. (The excerpt begins as Barry climbs out the dog door at 00:54:19.) This brief look at some of the musical resources used by film composers should be of help in recognizing these techniques in other scores. In studying these compositional techniques, the question is not only which techniques were used, but more significantly why, and how their usage heightened the drama and enhanced the film. Having discussed the use of melody, harmony, and rhythm in films, we can now turn our attention to the use of color: the art of orchestration.

SCORES FOR STUDY The reader is urged to study on DVD or videocassette the illustrations cited in this chapter, some of which are listed below, as well as these further examples of the

On the track

434

principles discussed. All timings cited are those on the DVD when released on that medium. The first number indicates the lapsed time in hours, the second the minutes, and the third seconds. Approximate timings are included for films only available on videocassette as of this writing, and are so indicated. Tempo and Pulse The Insider (1999, Pieter Bourke and Lisa Gerrard). Establishing a pulse is a key element in this electronic/contemporary score. At 00:27:10 Jeffrey Weigand (Russell Crowe) leaves the hotel after his first meeting with Bergman (Al Pacino). At 01:59 the pulse is in the bass, as Bergman is sent on vacation, then talks with Mike Douglas (Christopher Plummer). At approximately 02:15:00 there is a bass pulse with pad as Bergman watches Weigand’s interview (alto sax is added at 02:16:10 as he calls the New York Times in this pre-existing licensed cue). At 02:32:10 as Bergman leaves Mike Douglas, the score goes into rhythm only. The Percussion Section and Electronics Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, Tan Dun). Several major fight sequences are scored with percussion. Don’t Say a Word (2001, Mark Isham). The use of low drums adds to the tension at 01:15, 01:27, and from 01:45:00 to the end scene. Planet of the Apes (2001, Danny Elfman). Elfman’s score is filled with powerful percussion. The Score (2001, Howard Shore). Listen for the percussion at 00:44:15 as Nick (Robert De Niro) looks for another way out from under the building. FIGURE 15.10 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Composing

435

© 1977, 1979, 1980 Gold Horizon Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. The Orchestra as Rhythm Minority Report (2002, John Williams). Williams uses the string section to drive his score (and the film) forward. X-Files: Fight the Future (1998, Mark Snow). At 00:56:50 rhythm, percussion, and

On the track

436

orchestra combine, with the theme developed. Rhythmic Ostinatos Thief (1981, Tangerine Dream). This early electronic score defined the use of sequenced ostinatos for synthesizers in film. Uneven and Changing Meters Almost any action score by Jerry Goldsmith will have a variety of uneven meters giving his music energy and a powerful sense of forward motion. Examples include Along Came a Spider (2001) and The Sum of All Fears (2002; see Figures 15.8 and 15.9). Polyrhythms (Aleatoric) Altered States (1980, John Corigliano). See Figure 16.8 for an excerpt from Corigliano’s full orchestration, which includes his personal notation for the many aleatoric passages in this score. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977, John Williams). See Figure 15.10. The Sixth Sense (1999, James Newton Howard). As Cole (Haley Joel Osment) taunts his teacher, repeating “Stuttering Stanley, stuttering Stanley,” Howard brings in an aleatoric effect; the cue starts at 00:36:37.

Composing

437

This page intentionally left blank.

On the track

438

16 USING ORCHESTRATION The orchestration has such a bearing on the actual impact of the music. —Scott Smalley, Orchestrator

The orchestration of the music is almost as important as the composition. —Paul Wendkos, Director

The sound of a score is what stays with you more than the actual melody. —Anne Dudley

IS IT POSSIBLE TO recall a memorable film score without recalling its sound, particularly if we originally heard it in a theater with a top-quality sound system? Consider the sound of a zither playing the theme in The Third Man (1949), the whistling versions of “The Colonel Bogey March” in Malcom Arnold’s score for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Bernard Herrmann’s shrieking strings for the shower-scene murder in Psycho (1960), the echoing, lonely, military trumpet calls in Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Patton (1970), the visceral low synthesizer rhythm of Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire (1981), the soulful female voice in James Horner’s score for Titanic (1997). Orchestral color in film is even more important than in concert music because it evokes specific emotional responses, thereby becoming powerfully integrated with the character or texture of the film. Instrumental and choral colors are powerful resources for the composer, and each composer prides himself on his ability to find the right colors for every dramatic situation. Many film composers who are excellent orchestrators do not have time to do their own orchestrating, yet most composers give the orchestrator a MIDI sketch (or, less frequently, a handwritten sketch) containing varying degrees of details with regard to instrumental designations as well as the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic details that one usually thinks of as the “compositional” elements—that is, the melodies, harmonies, and rhythms of the music. James Horner starts his film assignments by looking for the right colors. “I’ll see film, and looking at the film I’ll say, ‘What strikes me most about this film is a certain orchestral color,’ and I will build my ensemble around that basic pigment of color, whether it’s a boys’ choir, or some sort of electronic color, or whatever.” The same

Composing

439

considerations must be taken into account for television shows, where music can be an important ingredient in the success of a series. When Mike Post is writing a theme, his first thoughts also include colors. “When I look at a film or read a script I try to think the big thoughts: I answer those three or four big questions: First, what kind of music is this? Then, what tempo is this? And then, before I put my hands down on an instrument I’ll ask myself. What kind of sounds are in this?”

CHARACTERIZING THE FILM’S DRAMATIC THEME In Brainstorm (1983), Horner was working with a film in which “everything on screen was very hi-tech, from the effects, story, machinery, the whole photo-thrust of the film. But there was a spiritual quality as well that was just beneath the surface. What I was trying to do in the score was play against that high-tech feeling. The most immediate way to do that for me was to use a boys’ choir. When we first discussed Brainstorm, [director] Douglas Trumbull wanted an electronic score, a high-tech sound. I thought about it and came up with the boys’ choir, which was sort of horrifying to them at first, because first of all, they didn’t know the color very well. Second of all, they didn’t know how I would use it. I told them it would be playing against what you saw. It has a wonderful quality, and I would write this quasi-sixteenth-century polyphony for the boys to sing. They had to take my word for it, although I played them a record of music from that era. I wanted to combine orchestra and boys’ choir and also do some avant-garde effects with the orchestra [Figure 16.1, at 01:37:01]. None of the music I played was a good example of what the choir would sound like against their film. Once they heard the boys’ choir they really liked that color, and their whole perception of the music changed. And they allowed me to proceed. We actually had an adult choir, which consisted of about 18 to 24 people and the boys’ choir, which consisted of 15 boys, and we had an orchestra all recorded live acoustically in MGM’s big barn of a studio [now Sony]. I love to do it all acoustically and not to overdub or isolate the musicians and choir.” In The Sum of All Fears (2002), Jerry Goldsmith uses the sound of a solo voice with orchestra to capture the essence of that film. “The movie has more than mere action; there’s a lot of subtext to the movie, it’s actually serious, and I wanted to find some music that would reflect that. This was not a film that was going to celebrate violence but rather an antiwar or an antiviolence statement.” He asked Paul Williams to write a lyric that would be a prayer. As for the music, “I didn’t want it operatic but it should have been operatic, and that’s how it eventually turned out.” Elliot Goldenthal uses a solo blues-oriented voice in A Time to Kill (1996), and Christopher Young several blues vocalists in The Hurricane (1999) to characterize the personal as well as thematic aspects of these films, which in both cases involve the suffering of African Americans due to racial prejudice. FIGURE 16.1 Brainstrom (1983)

On the track

440

© 1983 April Music Inc. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film Co. All rights controlled and administered by April Music Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. FIGURE 16.2 Under the Volcano (1984)

Composing

441

© 1984 Ithaca Productions Inc. 1984 assigned to Alex North. Used by permission: M.W.Krasilovsky, Attorney, 51E 42nd St., NY, NY 10017. All rights reserved.

SUGGESTING LOCALE WITH COLOR The Shipping News (2001) takes place in Newfoundland, and Christopher Young learned from the producers that most of the indigenous music there is Celtic-influenced. He colored his score with a variety of Irish instruments, most especially the pennywhistle and Celtic drums. “If I had put that same musical material on a piccolo, a flute, or on an oboe, it would have been an entirely different score. The drums, those Celtic drums that are beating away there at the very beginning, that becomes a signpost of sorts.” In Under the Volcano (1984), a story of the tragic disintegration of an alcoholic British consul in Mexico, there is an expressive Alex North cue as people are kneeling by the dead body of a Mexican peasant. The plaintive sound of an out-of-tune, primitive flute is set against muted horns, then against strings and bass marimba. The melodic material and instrumental colors combine in making this cue so effective (see Figure 16.2). North, who had spent two years in Mexico, recalled, “This was an old religious theme that I used as the basis for this scoring—with muted French horns. That was a strange score in the sense that I tried to establish the locale and the period in the use of the source music and tried to enrich the imagery of what [director John] Huston had done there, in the Mexican landscapes. And also I tried to get in the melancholy of the protagonist, the Consul [Albert Finney], a sort of Latin musical universality, so that the music was not Mexican at all. Just to reflect in a quiet way this man’s problems.” North described the orchestration: “For percussion I used about twelve different instruments. On the Main Title I used: sleigh bells; tambourine; xylophone (struck with large nails); booze bottle (struck with triangle beater); 4 castanets; guiro; Chinese blocks; log drum; cabasa/maraca (one in each hand): marimba; vibes; cowbells; gong/water gong; and a chromatic series of boom-bams (one-octave, from F below middle C to F above middle C).” See Figure 16.3 for the orchestration of the sketch shown in 16.2.

On the track

442

SYMPHONIC ORCHESTRATION When a film calls for a sound that is bigger than life, full of heroic adventure, you might think of any of the contemporary action films, most of which are scored with very large orchestras (including prerecorded electronics; see Chapters 18 and 20). John Williams’ Star Wars (1977) became a prototype for the space/action score, the stylistic precedent for which was symphonic orchestral scores such as Maurice Jarre’s Lawrence of Ara-bia (1962), and Erich Korngold’s scores for The Sea Hawk (1940) and Captain Blood (1935). As familiar as these classics may be, the orchestration of these scores can no more be taken for granted than the use in a score of special, subtle, and unique sounds. Many times composers will blend the two approaches. In any event, they all must be written and orchestrated correctly, which is both an art and a craft. Contemporary futuristic space adventures, with their spectacular sci-fi wars, space vistas, supervillains, and superheroes, call for scores in the large orchestra tradition of those heroic films. A huge cue like James Horner’s Main Title for Star Trek II (1982) evolves into a completely filled-out score at its biggest (Figure 16.4), but the goal is to maintain clarity and balance within that amount of sound. Figure 16.5 illustrates an orchestral setting of the “mothership” theme from John Williams’ score for Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977; this excerpt begins at 01:56:55 on the Collector’s Edition DVD, as the mothership slowly descends. See also Figure 15.10). The string section is the core of the symphonic approach and can be used for many situations. Figure 16.6 illustrates how Herb Spencer orchestrated strings in one of Marvin Hamlisch’s romantic cues for The Way We Were (1973; the cue begins at 00:48:24 with solo piano, and the excerpt begins at 00:49:13, scoring the montage). James Newton Howard’s score for Signs (2002) is at times very sparse, and at other times dynamic and full. His Main Title music begins very quietly with a few strings playing harmonics, but soon thereafter develops into a fully orchestrated version of FIGURE 16.3 Under the Volcano (1984)

Composing

443

© 1984 Ithaca Productions Inc. 1984 assigned to Alex North. Used by permission: M.W. Krasilovsky, Attorney, 51E 42nd St., NY, NY 10017. FIGURE 16.4 Star Trek II: The Warth of Khan (1982)

On the track

444

© 1982 by Famous Music Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

445

On the track

446

Composing

FIGURE 16.5 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

447

On the track

448

© 1977, 1979, 1980 Gold Horizon Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

449

On the track

FIGURE 16.6 The Way We Were (1973)

450

Composing

451

© 1973 by Colgems-EMI Music Inc. Hollywood, CA. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

452

Composing

453

On the track

454

his main motivic materials. (See Figure 16.7 for the reproduction of a full page of the Main Title, orchestrated by Pete Anthony. This illustration begins at 00:01:56 and includes the last four bars of the Main Title prior to the final downbeat.) The great composer/orchestrators—Mozart, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Stravinsky, Respighi, Ravel—all understood the balances and imbalances of the orchestra’s sections, and were keenly aware of the fact that orchestration is much more

Composing

455

than simply assigning the notes from a piano sketch to whatever instruments are available to play them. Their scores and recordings should be studied to see how they used each orchestral section for its most characteristic and unique sounds. They were always careful not to destroy the effectiveness of the subtle color effects of the strings and woodwinds by using them constantly in combination with the overpowering brass and heavy percussion. Do not assume that misjudgments in orchestration will be corrected during the recording process. Yes, you can favor a solo instrument if the orchestral competition is not too overwhelming; however you cannot make a poorly orchestrated piece of music sound good with recording technology or engineering magic. John Corigliano’s unsettling score for Altered States (1980) matches evocative textures to powerful images of hallucinations. Those orchestrational colors were conceptualized when director Ken Russell went to a concert of the Los Angeles Philharmonic to hear Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra and also heard the premiere of Corigliano’s Clarinet Concerto. He had found the orchestral colors that fitted his film concept and called Corigliano the next day to offer him his first film assignment. The score is notable not only for its power and beauty but for its use of aleatoric procedures and nonmetric notation (see Figure 16.8; 00:31:48). The use of the coloristic instruments (piano, harp, celeste, other keyboards) and percussion instruments can be very effective in film scoring. Williams set his E.T. The Extra- Terrestrial theme for these instruments to suggest the childlike nature of E.T. and his home-made phone (Figure 16.9; 01:11:42, on the cut to tall trees at night as he waits for his machine to work). Each orchestral instrument has its own personality that can bring life to a score when used to best advantage.

FRESH SOUNDS AND INTERESTING COMBINATIONS Not only is the composer looking for colors that will evoke the tone and attitude of the film, but he is also looking for unusual sounds that will make this music and this film uniquely “his”—identifiably different from other film scores of the same genre. Many of these sounds are created on synthesizers or sampled from instruments from all parts the world. Once sampled, these sounds are sometimes further manipulated. Thomas Newman’s scores for The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and The Player (1992) are examples of this electronic approach used in the creation of interesting sounds custom made for a particular film. Howard Shore, in his score for Crash (1996), the story of a group of people who deliberately get into car crashes for sexual excitement, used 6 electric guitars, 3 harps, 3 woodwinds, and 2 percussion. As is often the case, he manipulated these sounds electronically to make them even more compatible with these dramatic elements. “Crash was 75 percent recorded, 25 percent resampled, and then it was manipulated and recomposed, if you will, for 25 percent of it, using the sound of the recording. I would record parts of the handwritten score and then I would manipulate those recordings, sometimes with the original recordings, so I would create electronic pieces from my acoustic recordings. Sometimes I’d slow them down or I’d loop those recordings or I’d play them against the pieces that I had recorded.”

On the track

456

In the mid-eighties composers began using the Electronic Woodwind Instrument (or EWI) as a wind controller to activate synth or sampled sounds. For example, Bill Conti used an EWI to simulate panpipes for Karate Kid II (1986). Electronically created sounds were used in motion pictures as far back as the forties; Miklós Rózsa’s use of the electronic theremin in Spellbound (1945) is a classic example. Sometimes the special sounds were acoustic; for example, Maurice Jarre’s anvil-like percussion instruments borrowed from a Balinese gamelan orchestra for Mad Max beyond Thunderdome (1985), and Karlin’s use of an airy recorder choir in Up the Down Staircase (1967, see Figure 16.10). This music would not have been the same if orchestrated for orchestral woodwinds, nor would it have expressed the new high school teacher’s (Sandy Dennis’) character so accurately. Occasionally, acoustic sounds were recorded and later electronically processed. In 1962 Jerry Goldsmith worked with an electronic specialist in Germany who helped with some tape manipulations for his score for Freud. The ominous repetition of a strummed, bizarrely tuned zither in The Stalking Moon (1968, Karlin) was created by doubling realtime sound with tape recordings played back at half speed (and sometimes backwards) combined with the aggressive use of equilization and reverb. Tan Dun combined a variety of ethnic instruments with orchestra to create his sound for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). In addition to a traditional orchestra, he brought in a folk orchestra, a percussion ensemble, soloists performing on ethnic instruments including erhu, bawu, dizi, rawap, and various percussion instruments, a sampler, plus cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Dun recalls, “We recorded with the Shanghai National Folk Instruments Orchestra which was forty pieces, we had the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra which was eighty pieces, and finally there was the Shanghai Percussion Ensemble which was twenty pieces, plus there were a number of soloists.” Unique sounds can be created without looking beyond the resources of an acoustic orchestra. In Wait until Dark (1967), Henry Mancini had to sustain an hour-long sequence of tension as a blind woman (Audrey Hepburn) is terrorized in her apartment by murderous crooks in search of a drug-filled doll. One of Mancini’s “sounds” was the combination of two piano sounds, one piano detuned by a quarter tone. “At the beginning she’s waiting for the doll, and the guy’s putting heroin in it and setting it up; and she’s impatient—it’s a pantomime. There’s a certain mystery. You certainly don’t know what’s going on. And the Alan Arkin character is nuts—with a touch of the sadist. Those two things set me off on that piano thing. It’s just a recurring A minor triad up in the middle register, played on the regular piano first, and then immediately repeated by the detuned piano (with the pedal down, which gave it the natural reverberation).” FIGURE 16.7 Sign (2002)

Composing

457

© 2002 Touchstone Pictures Music & Songs, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 16.8 Altered States (1980)

On the track

458

© 1980 WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Composing

459

On the track

460

Composing

461

On the track

FIGURE 16.9 E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

462

Composing

463

© 1982 Songs of Universal, Inc. (BMI) All rights reserved. Used by permission. Mancini also used another unusual color, this time based on an ethnic instrument. “When I was in Japan some time ago, I brought back several instruments they call the sho. And they are reed pipes; it looks like you are holding a cluster of pipes that are pointing towards the air. They’re tapered in, and then you put your fingers on the holes in the side, and you play tones. And it sounds like a very reedy out-of-tune instrument in the mouthorgan family. I had three or four of those, and I figured out where the notes were for the woodwind guys to play. When the girl goes looking through the clothes at the beginning of the picture, and she finds the guy in the bag—dead—these instruments are playing.” Sometimes a fresh orchestral sound is arrived at by avoiding a standard orchestra. When M. Night Shyamalan asked James Newton Howard to forgo using some of his usual orchestral resources, he was faced with an unusual challenge. “When I made my knee jerk response to handle and approach a scene a certain way, I wasn’t able to do that. I couldn’t bring a woodwind FIGURE 16.10 Up the Down Staircase (1967)

On the track

464

© 1967 Warner Bros. Inc. (Renewed) All rights reserved. Used by permission. in if I wanted to be plaintive or sad. I couldn’t bring in French horns and trombones if I wanted to be more threatening and dark. The whole thing had to be contained in strings with a solo trumpet.” In the other extreme, Gordon Goodwin orchestrated Trevor Rabin’s score for Armageddon (1998) for large orchestra plus extra brass. “We had an enormous low brass section because the testosterone for those kind of movies needs it. We had 8 French horns on that movie and we also divided them, we had four horns on the right side of the orchestra and four on the left. Trying for an antiphonal effect. We had 3 trumpets, and we probably had 4 tenor trombones, 1 bass trombone, 1 contrabass trombone, and 2 tuba/cimbaso guys. A cimbaso kind of looks like a trombone, but it has valves, and it has an amazing penetrating tone on it, especially for low accents. Just an incredible intensity. Cimbaso just adds an edge that you can’t get from a tuba or from a bass trombone or a contrabass even. It has the range of a tuba.”

CHANGE THE COLOR, CHANGE THE EMOTION Changing any compositional element at a dramatic moment in the film can shift the emotional emphasis or affect its intensity. Making a change in the orchestration can delineate the dramatic phrasing of a scene, either emphasizing or de-emphasizing the drama. Thomas Newman’s score for American Beauty (1999) offers several examples. First, Newman bases his Main Title music on one motif that is presented with various instrumental colors; the orchestration varies as well. Then, the first time Lester (Kevin Spacey) lifts weights in his garage, Newman adds a new color element (moderately high guitar chords) as he strips down. At this point, Lester becomes more intense and Newman’s music subtly emphasizes this change.

ORCHESTRAL EFFECTS

Composing

465

Many times the music will sound like an effect: a bit of aural magic more than a musical idea. This can be done either acoustically, electronically, or with a blend of both. In The Omen (1976), a clue to the unseen demonic powers is a shaft of light that appears only in photographs of persons marked for tragedy. Goldsmith’s ascending dissonant portamentos in muted strings, colored by vibes, is presented in different versions for a supernatural effect (Figure 16.11). Two such instances occur at 00:19:44, as the photographer develops his photograph of Father Brennan, and at 00:38:39 as he scans another photograph with a magnifying glass.

SMALL BUDGETS A tight budget can inspire creative decisions on every level. When Randy Edelman faced the problem of a very small budget for Executive Action (1973), instrumental color became a significant part of his concept. “The film was footage of Kennedy interspersed with a fictional account of the assassination. I wrote something on the piano that was very barbaric and primitive. The drama was very harsh and this music could be translated at the ultimate to 6 cellos playing 6 different semitones—very harsh, barbaric, strident.” Edelman knew he wouldn’t have 6 cellos if he used any kind of traditional orchestra for his score—there just wasn’t enough money for that. “So what I decided to do was go for my 6 cellos. And then I had to figure out a way to do the whole score that way. I didn’t want to get a small string section and have the violas play it. I ended up doing the score with 6 cellos, percussion, and piano.

TO ORCHESTRATE OR NOT TO ORCHESTRATE? I do all my own orchestration. I orchestrate as I go, into my sequencer. —Harry Gregson-Williams

When you have nine days to orchestrate ninety minutes of music and you’re still making changes and I’m still composing for one of my last sessions coming up, it’s absolutely physically impossible. —Marco Beltrami

Sometimes the process of handing something over to somebody else and seeing how they’re hearing the music can be very, very informative. —Edward Shearmur

Symphonic composers always do their own orchestration, yet throughout the history of

On the track

466

film music, most composers in Hollywood have had orchestrators. This evolved from the studio system of the thirties through the mid-fifties, when the major studios each had music staffs that included not only composers, but orchestrators, arrangers, rehearsal pianists, songwriters, a music library for music copying, and any other musical resources needed. The composers sketched their music on anywhere from 2 to 4 or more staves, giving indications as to what instruments played the various elements of their music— strings here, brass there, a piano solo, and so on. Despite the breakup of the studio music staffs in the midfifties, this system of sketching continued for many composers. There were exceptions: a few composers insisted from the beginning on orchestrating their own music, the most prominent of whom in the United States was Bernard Herrmann (who was not part of the staff system at that time). In Europe, Italian composer Ennio Morricone has always orchestrated his own scores, believing that orchestration is such an integral part of the composition process that it should not and cannot successfully be assigned to another person. Of course, if the composer writes a melody and indicates it is to be played by an ocarina, then the orchestrator will assign that line to a solo ocarina, thereby fulfilling the composer’s orchestrational intentions. So a lot depends upon the degree of detail indicated by a composer’s sketches. Television composers in the seventies and eighties more often than not orchestrated their own music because there simply wasn’t the budget to pay someone else to orchestrate. This is still so, although there are relatively few opportunities to write for acoustic orchestras. And since the prevalence of MIDI and sequencers, many film composers now use computers to “notate” their scores, sometimes orchestrating in great detail as they compose, and sometimes not. Most composers get great satisfaction from orchestrating and would prefer to do their own, but the quantity of music to be written for a film may be so great that it is impossible. Some FIGURE 16.11 The Omen (1976)

Composing

467

© 1976 WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

468

Composing

469

do as much as they can, up to the point when the deadline approaches. When they can’t do their own, they make detailed indications on the sketches so their concept will guide the orchestrator. John Cacavas has always liked to do his own orchestrating because “you get a second shot at everything. When you give your sketch to the orchestrator you’re through with it. When you orchestrate yourself, you get a chance to improve it as you go.” It often takes a while for a composer to adjust to working with an orchestrator. When the late John Addison worked on Alfred Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain in 1966, “it had to be done fast, and I was already exhausted from scoring A Fine Madness. Up until that time I had always scored everything myself. There were not, in England, the equivalent of the Hollywood orchestrators. My orchestrator in England put down exactly what was in my sketches. “Universal assigned Eddie Powell to me, and I was scared stiff. I said that I would like to see the scores before they went in to be copied. In one instance he did get a little bit carried away. I said, ‘Well, look, I’m not saying it wouldn’t sound good but it isn’t what I had intended, so would you mind very much putting it back to the way I had it.’ But, conversely, he made certain suggestions which were extremely effective. I had a canonic string passage tremolando, a sort of airy effect, and he suggested just putting in a chord on muted horns, and I said, ‘Well, okay, why not?’ If I didn’t like it, after all, I’d just tell them not to play. But I found it very effective—something I hadn’t thought of doing. “I soon learned that because those orchestrators had worked with all the greats, they knew every single trick of the trade. I would discuss things with them, and they would make suggestions which very often I would take. Since I’ve been living in Los Angeles, I’ve learned a lot from orchestrators like Jack Hayes and Gus Levene. “And I learned from the orchestrators that they were less likely to slip up and miss

On the track

470

something if I didn’t have situations in which there were arrows going from line to line and all that. So I try to organize my sketches with the woodwinds on 2 staves at the top and the strings on 2 staves at the bottom. Occasionally you’ll need a third string staff. Then there’s an extra staff at the bottom for percussion plus another line for nonpitch percussion.”

SKETCHES I’ve seen Jerry Goldsmith’s sketches. And there’s nothing that you have to add. Maybe you can see something that got left out, but other than that, it’s all there. —Scott Smalley, Orchestrator

Handwritten Sketches Each composer has his own favorite format for pencil or pen sketching, depending of course on the number of instruments. For full orchestra sounds the late Georges Delerue favored a 3-line sketch (for his own use, because he did his own orchestration). Bill Conti, Randy Edelman, and Patrick Williams have written 4- to 6-line sketches; Marvin Hamlisch 5 lines; Craig Safan usually 6; Alex North and John Addison used 8. Several of these sketches contain an extra line for nonpitched percussion. Laurence Rosenthal likes 9 lines plus percussion; Ira Newborn 9 to 10; Henry Mancini used 10; Alan Silvestri has gone up to 14. The formats vary from composer to composer, and from one size orchestra to another, with clefs inserted as needed. A typical 3-line sketch will have 2 treble-clef staves at the top and a bass clef at the bottom (and probably a percussion single line below). As more staves are added, extra treble clefs are usually added in the upper staves and an extra bass clef in the bottom staff. For full orchestra sketches, with from 8 to 14 staves, one typical layout has double staves for woodwinds and horns at the top, double staves for brass, double staves for mallets and keyboards, and double staves for strings, plus percussion lines. But sketches are very personal and there is no standard setup comparable to the standard orchestral score page. Some handwritten sketches are so complete that virtually nothing need be added. Arthur Morton used to say that his job in orchestrating for Jerry Goldsmith was very straightforward: “I take the music from the yellow paper and put it on the white paper.” Mancini’s sketches were equally complete. For convenience, composers sometimes prefer to conduct from their complete sketches rather than referring to the full-page orchestrations. These sketches frequently have verbal descriptions on them indicating instrumental choices, and equally important, overall musical directions. David Spear has orchestrated for Elmer Bernstein and observed how helpful that can be. “Elmer would add little dramatic terms like ‘warm,’ or ‘icy,’ or ‘big,’ or ‘intimate,’ or ‘heavy,’ or ‘morose.’ Whatever feeling he wanted invoked, he would indicate that over a section, and that would be a huge clue for me. It’s a shorthand that composers do to facilitate the next part

Composing

471

of it, so that they can remind themselves or remind their orchestrators that this is how they want it to sound.” Several composers, including Gerald Fried, have sketched directly on the score pages, having the orchestrator (if there is one) fill in their sketch score.

MIDI SKETCHES MIDI sketches begin as a computer sketch with perhaps hundreds of separate MIDI tracks for one complex cue. Experimental tracks, melodies that are subsequently discarded, early versions of a cue that are replaced later on, all remain side by side. That’s very convenient for the composer because it’s so easy to check a discarded counterline, for instance, against a revised melody to see if it works in this new context. Or he can play, one at a time, a dozen different versions of a string line he has been working on to help him decide which he prefers. Then, as he refines his sketch to make it sound better (perhaps more convincingly orchestral), dozens of new tracks might be added, each doubling a specific part in order to make it bigger, richer sounding, more like a trumpet section or a French horn unison. When the cue is finished, the tracks (excluding by now unused ideas and trial-and-error experimentation) become the sketch. This can be (and is, sometimes) sent directly to an orchestrator, but the resulting overload of tracks and non-pertinent information can be overwhelming for an orchestrator, and also nearly impossible to work with. Not only is there too much information, but rhythms may not have been smoothed out, leading to a simple whole-note string pad notated with thirtysecond notes at the beginning or end of each bar. More complicated rhythmic figures may be virtually impossible to decipher with certainty. If the composer is doing his own orchestration and working from this sort of sketch, none of this is too daunting, because he is thoroughly familiar with the music. But if it is on the way to an orchestrator, many times the MIDI sketch is sent first to a copyist or copying service to be cleaned up. All the typical problems are smoothed out and the notation is refined to accurately reflect the composer’s intentions. Then the revised MIDI sketch is sent over to the orchestrator, often later the same day, or, at latest, the next day. The orchestrator is invariably sent an audio CD of the composer’s mockup of the cue along with the sketch (whether MIDI or handwritten). This is a very crucial part of the orchestrator’s information, and there are times, based on the audio and the more primitive version of the MIDI sketch, when the orchestrator simply works from the original MIDI version. Orchestrator Brad Dechter will sometimes prescreen the MIDI sketch to see whether it needs to be smoothed out by a copyist. “With the audio reference, I’ll go through it and look at it, and I’ll say, ‘You know what, I can do this. It’s basically half note and whole note string pads and an oboe solo.’ So I’ll go through it and I’ll print out the sequencer notation and I’ll use my red pen and just put an arrow telling me, ‘That’s on the downbeat, not on the eighth note coming up off the upbeat,’ and I’ll just do it. Because that will save some money and time, so I’ll say, ‘This batch of cues, maybe one third of the cues, we don’t need a MIDI transcription, but these we really do.’”

On the track

472

Audio Mockups Without reference to the composer’s mockups, a great deal of significant musical information might never be communicated to the orchestrator. The audio reference the orchestrator receives is usually the same mockup that the director has heard; the version everyone has approved. “In some cases, it would be impossible to look at a sketch and really understand what we need to do,” says Dechter, “because of course the composer has basically mixed it down on a mixing board, so sometimes they’ll have five different string lines doubling something for the effect of whatever, and I look at that and I see one flute or a clarinet or an oboe and that may seem insignificant but actually the oboe is the important thing. And it may not be clear from the sketch. So we use the audio, it’s an integral part now of what we do with those who do it in this MIDI way.”

TRANSPOSED OR CONCERT-PITCH SCORES? In 1985, copyist-librarian Rick Vettraino said that “ninety percent of the scores we see are transposed. The scores in concert pitch usually come from the composers, but in a few cases the orchestrators will give us C scores.” There is an extra charge by a copyist for transposing, but the principal reasons given by orchestrators for scoring in transposed pitch were (1) the ability to see as you orchestrate exactly what the players will see; and (2) to be doubly sure about correctness of the transpositions and to make corrections easier on the scoring stage. The reasons given by the composers who do concert scores are (1) speed; (2) the ability to give the copyist instructions to copy one part from another line without concern for the transpositions of each of the instruments (see Figure 16.12); and (3) to be able to more easily and clearly see complex harmonic relationships. Since 1985 the trend has moved toward concert pitch scores, many times without key signatures—accidentals are simply added as needed. This is undoubtedly the result of so many composers working in concert pitch with sequencing programs and, as a consequence, less ease and familiarity with all the transpositions. As much as 90 to 95 percent of film music scores are now prepared in concert pitch.

THE ART OF ORCHESTRATION Being able to write for a small group and make it sound great, that’s harder than writing for a full symphony because you can just give everybody unison and it sounds beautiful. —David Spear

At the beginning of my career every cue I did I was scared to death. What should I do? There’s always a million right answers, you know? —Brad Dechter, Orchestrator

Composing

473

Beautiful orchestration is greatly respected (although taken for granted), and much can be learned from those who have developed that craft. The late, highly regarded orchestrator Leo Shuken said in a 1975 interview: “I think a fine orchestrator’s background can vary from formal training to self-training but I think the most important thing is to have communication with the composer, and don’t let your ego take over. I like to think I can communicate with the composer and execute what he has in mind and with his feeling.” Sometimes the orchestrator must do the selective editing that the composer would have done if he were orchestrating his own music. “I remember a picture that I orchestrated of Dimitri Tiomkin’s, The Spawn of the North (1938),” Shuken said, “and when I looked at the sketch, I felt like I was in a cafeteria—like somebody handing you a tray and telling you to pick something out, because there was no orchestra big enough to play everything that was on the sketch, so I just picked out what I thought were the important points, and fortunately it worked out. “The melody was harmonized, then he had a sustaining thing from the very bottom to the very top of the orchestra, like a curtain; he had a counterpoint that was harmonized, and he had figures. I did the logical thing—I didn’t harmonize the melody and the counterpoint was left in the clear. It was a process of elimination. He seemed to be very pleased, like opening a Christmas package.” Shuken’s longtime associate Jack Hayes believed that to be a proficient orchestrator “it helps to be a composer too, and almost all of them are.” He feels his task is to orchestrate in the way the composer would orchestrate it himself. “It is a great help to know each composer’s style.” He pointed out that Henry Mancini, John Morris, and Marvin Hamlisch each had their own style as reflected in the sketches they gave him. Scott Smalley insists that the orchestrator must be completely true to the composer. “I can identify every orchestrator in town. I can hear about one note of a cue and I go, ‘Oh, that’s so-and-so.’ Obviously, most of the other orchestrators are putting their imprint upon the music. With me, it’s a pet peeve. That doesn’t really work as well as having a score that’s completely consistent from note one to the last note, and have it sound like it’s done by the same person.” Hayes emphasizes that the best way to learn to orchestrate is to pick effective passages from scores and reduce them to condensed sketch scores. “It’s very laborious but it’s a really good system. When I first learned to write the style of Tchaikovsky, I took those scores and I could see what he did with the horns, the strings. And you have to write it down. You can look at it and say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s it,’ but you’ve really got to do it. That way you really absorb it.” David Spear enthusiastically agrees. “I make my students reduce an orchestration onto two staves. That’s how I learned it. By undoing an orchestration, so to speak, and reducing it to its essence, not putting the doublings down, just putting the core notes down. And you’ll see it on two staves or three staves and you’ll say, ‘Oh, my God, this is so simple, I could have written this.’ When you actually physically do it and transpose it to concert pitch onto two staves and you look at it, it’s not necessarily pianistic, but you see the essence of the score. You learn so much from doing that.”

On the track

474

THE COMPOSER/ORCHESTRATOR RELATIONSHIP An important part of my job is to make sure that when a cue is read down the first time it sounds great and is right for the picture. If it doesn’t work for any reason, it’s my fault. —Mark McKenzie, Orchestrator

The main key is to try to keep the music as organic as possible to the composer’s vision and style. —Scott Smalley, Orchestrator

In the composer/orchestrator relationship, the orchestrator sometimes must fill in parts of the score, going beyond what the composer sketched. During the decades before MIDI, Shuken said, “I think I have done more composing for other people than I have for myself. But I have enjoyed every minute of it.” When answering the question about whether it was a common occurrence to help where a composer was technically incapable of providing him with a full sketch, he said: “Say I’m working with ten composers, two out of the ten don’t give you more than a glorified lead sheet—I don’t know if you’d call that common or not. I’m thinking of a case where a certain person writes good tunes and has a good dramatic sense but has no orchestral technique. But he makes up for it in other areas. If I were to take a timing sheet and write the music for it, I think it would be immoral if the composer wasn’t able to. On the other hand if a good composer gives you a timing sheet because of a deadline problem, I think you should be flattered.” While there are many who now compose for films who have a strong, thorough background and traditional classical training, there are those who don’t. “The orchestrator realizes the composer’s vision,” says Gordon Goodwin, “and I’d say that in the era where we find ourselves now, where more and more composers have no practical experience with an orchestra—many of these guys have never stood up there, many of these guys have never held an instrument in their hands, they’ve all been pushing keyboards and computer keys their whole life—so the orchestrator has to be able to say, ‘Here’s how you take this from the virtual world into the real world,’ and make suggestions as to how to best magnify what the composer’s vision is.” The orchestrator’s function in the world of film music is not always clear. As Mark McKenzie explains, “It’s different with each composer I work with. The work can range from composing a cue for a composer in a time crunch, to arranging a cue from a simple melody and chord symbols, to taking the given notes and translating them instrumentally into a pleasing orchestration, to just taking the completely laid out indications on the sketch and putting them onto score paper (i.e., a glorified copyist) or anything inbetween.” Pete Anthony expresses it slightly differently. “It’s like musical architecture and there’s a master architect who draws the sketch of a building and I have to decide exactly

Composing

475

what kind of beams are going to be used and what are the specifications on the bolts and the nails and the screws and how far they have to be apart. So this guy decides it’s going to be a two-story building and it’s going to be Tudor-style, there’s going to be a certain number of windows and they’re going to be about here. And I have to draw the plan that will work that is behind what that sketch is.” Anthony points out another distinction. “I always think of the orchestrator as someone who doesn’t ever have to worry about creating the bars. As opposed to an arranger, where getting from point A to B for an arranger is taking someone else’s material and organizing it in such a way, and then an orchestrator would take it from there. Now that we know exactly how we get from point A to point B, how many beats there are, what the basic notes are, now the orchestrator takes over.” But, as we have learned from Shuken, Hayes, and McKenzie, there are times when the orchestrator may be required to determine how to get from point A to point B. There used to be some snobbery expressed by those who do have a traditional music background and those who don’t, but

Pete Anthony. that seems to have faded. McKenzie is philosophical and openminded. “I have found that music is such a broad and expansive art form that often what one might superficially judge as musically inept or musically illiterate actually has a certain unique inventive quality to it that I can help by bringing my experience and expertise. While I was working on my Masters and Doctorate in composition at USC, I learned to have respect for music that I didn’t personally like much. Generally just about any musical expression has some personal stamp on it, some aspect of it that is interesting to me. When someone is limited in their experience, I will try to scope out what the composer is looking for dramatically. Then I will take their idea, superimpose my orchestral ideas and come up with something we are both happy with.” On a more personal level, “I have tried to be very careful in making decisions about what I will work on and more importantly, who I will work for. If I don’t think I’ll be happy working with someone I’ve learned to carefully listen to my instincts and say no to any given job. Early on, I learned to manage my money because it was important to my success as an orchestrator and composer. By having enough provision in the bank, I can

On the track

476

allow myself the freedom to say no. That has been very important to me.” McKenzie sees the function of a film music orchestrator as being partially one of determining a composer’s dramatic intentions. “First to know the composer’s general musical style and then to understand and know what the composer’s intention is dramatically and emotionally in a given piece of music. What is he trying to accomplish musically? What emotion is he going for and to what level or degree? Is it power, magic, elation, sadness, beauty, fear, comedy? After I’m sure what the intention is, and how flexible or inflexible the composer is, then my job is to help the composer express that idea via the orchestra in the most effective way possible.” How can the orchestrator be most helpful to the composer? “The main key,” says Scott Smalley, “is to try to keep the music as organic as possible to the composer’s vision and style. The only way I can describe it is that I developed what you’d call almost a seventh sense where I would have to psychic mind meld with the composer and listen to the music in his head and try to bring it forth onto the score and connect up the dots within the score.” Smalley passionately believes he best serves a composer by becoming intuitively aware of and connected to the composer’s creative consciousness.

ORCHESTRATING FROM MIDI SKETCHES There are a lot of differences between what synthesizers do and what orchestras do. —Mark McKenzie, Orchestrator

The complication is for an orchestrator to figure out, what is it the composer means as opposed to what is it he played? Because they may be totally different. —Pete Anthony, Orchestrator

I always go with what it sounds like over what it looks like. —Gordon Goodwin, Orchestrator

The biggest thing isn’t really the orchestrational chops, it’s the dramatic chops. To be able to look at a piece of film and instinctively know that this needs to be big, this needs to be small. And all shades in between. —Edward Shearmur

At their best, MIDI sketches can be specific and clear blueprints for the orchestration. They may even be in basic orchestration format, with staves for individual woodwinds at the top, then French horns, and so on down through the orchestra with the string section

Composing

477

at the bottom of the page. On the other hand there are questions these MIDI sketches may leave unanswered. Cleaning up the MIDI information by transcribing the original rough MIDI sketch, smoothing it out and dropping redundant tracks, will help a lot in such cases. But the orchestrator may still be left with some fundamental issues to work out. Pete Anthony explains one potential problem. “Look how a composer uses a string sample. A violin sample, for example, is commonly 20 violins playing one note. Now the composer plays three notes and he’s got 20 violins, 20 violins, 20 violins. Now he’s got 60 violins, okay? Then he adds two notes in the cellos, and each of those samples is 10 cellos. Now he’s got 20 cellos. We’ve got 60 violins and 20 cellos making the sound (before he fills out the other string groups). Now, this sound is huge, you know. And it has nothing to do with an orchestra.” The audio files and/or a CD of the mockup is crucial, of course, but doesn’t resolve all questions. As Anthony cautions, “The communication of the audio to the filmmakers may be totally unrelated to the communication of the musical ideas to the orchestrator.” Everyone agrees about this. As Gordon Goodwin says, “The composers have got a meeting with the director, and a lot of these directors are incapable of visualizing, you know, this will be a great string line that will just soar above—they just don’t know about that. They just have to hear it and react emotionally right then and they say yes or no right then. So a composer has to get past that meeting and a lot of times it gets predictable because you know what devices the director likes, especially if you’ve worked for him more than once. So you tend to go back to that well.” It becomes crucial for the composer to “sell” his score with the best sound he can create for his mockups, whether or not it relates to a final orchestration. Here are some factors the orchestrator will find himself considering: 1. The individual string parts may or may not be specified, but in any case decisions about whether the 2nd violins or the violas plays a particular line, along with similar decisions about divisions, double stops, and other specifics will usually need to be made. This is one of the things orchestrators do, whether with handwritten or MIDI sketches. 2. Particular instrumental choices used for the mockups may not translate effectively if assigned to the orchestra. “Here’s the problem,” says Dechter. “You have an amazing amount of control with synth patches. You can make a French horn a brassy sound, and when I get it, I say, ‘That really is going to sound better with the trombone.’ Or, I might double them, if that’s the appropriate thing. Or sometimes, and no offense to the composers, they’ll just keep using that nice French horn patch. But, truly, it’s like a low rich 1st, 5th, and 3rd trombone voicing.” 3. MIDI performances do not usually translate directly to the orchestra. “Notes that get played in with your fingers sometimes are not notes that will work with an orchestra,” says Mc-Kenzie. “And so you can take the same gesture and put different notes there that will make the gesture happen. Strings, for example. There are strings that you can play on your fingers [triggering samples] that don’t play well on string instruments. So you get the upwards sweep or the arpeggiated kind of feel, and you just use different notes.” 4. You can play things on a keyboard with samples that cannot be played by a wind player. If the orchestrator finds an oboe sustaining a single note for a minute, adjustments must be made. 5. Sampled instruments may be written out of the range of their acoustic counterparts.

On the track

478

“There was a whole passage with strings which was sort of rhythmic, and it would have been really nice for the violins to play it in their low register,” Dechter recalls, “but it kept hitting on F [below middle C] once in a while, and the violins can’t do that, obviously. Okay, so is it violas or do I put celli or do I add woodwinds to it or piano or whatever? Because it was very clearly a string type of thing, but, are the violas going to be enough to carry it? Or do you want to put violin on part of it? I think not because you’re going to notice when they don’t play that F.” 6. Woodwind and brass doublings aren’t always considered. A flute player may be asked to play flute for a while, and then hit a loud piccolo accent with no break in between. 7. There may be too many different elements. “There are plenty of times when in a MIDI environment you can just keep layering, layering, putting more and more parts on there, and it fills up the sound and it kind of works,” says Goodwin. “But try it with an orchestra, it’s cluttered and muddy, it doesn’t work. I remember one time, a composer had I’d say 10 to 12 independent string lines. He had a low droning bass. He had a bass repeated note figure. Then he had another line in the viola register. Then he had a big 3octave line in the violins. Then he had a high 2-octave drone, and then a high repeated note figure. So, as an orchestrator, you have to say, okay, what do I really need, and what don’t I need.” 8. Synth voicings may sound huge, but those same voicings will not be as effective if assigned to the orchestra. Every instrument must be playing in its most effective register to get the biggest sound from the orchestra. McKenzie elaborates: “You can play a flute on a synthesizer down on middle C, for example, and it sounds beautiful and huge. But every instrument sounds great on really a rather limited number of notes. And so it’s a matter of saying, “I know the sound you’re going for, but it isn’t going to happen with these notes.” 9. Orchestral balances may be completely unrealistic: a solo alto flute playing against loud brass accents and big sustained French horn chords doubled by the strings, with a drum set and rhythm section going all at the same time. 10. The exact dramatic level of size and intensity may not be clear. Should the cue be moderately big, very big, or huge? Kind of intense or very intense? How big a climax? “There’s a dramatic sensibility that good orchestrators get when they are looking at the picture,” McKenzie says. “They think, ‘I know where this should be, and I’m going to make it go to that place.’” 11. You cannot always tell exactly where a note begins. If the volume is extremely low (or all the way down to zero) when the note is first played, you’ll see the note on the MIDI sketch but you won’t hear it for some number of beats later, when the composer has brought the volume up to an audible level. 12. Samples in the score that are perhaps represented by a single note in the MIDI sketch that triggers a full orchestral excerpt of avant-garde effects cannot be replicated while the orchestra is playing something else at the same time. “These sample triggers all get played over the top of each other,” Anthony says. “Essentially they’re creating a collage of sound. Well, when we’re scoring with an orchestra, we don’t have, of course, 4 orchestras sitting there, so that’s a real problem in terms of the communication. I know what the composer wants because I can hear it, and hopefully I’ve been able to see the

Composing

479

scene, but then it’s up to me now to get the single real orchestra to approximate what he’s hearing.” Many times the only solution is to use the sampled orchestral effects along with the orchestra; there’s simply no other way to achieve those effects simultaneously. All in all, there is a tremendous amount of technique involved and hundreds of decisions to be made by an orchestrator every day. “I would say 90 percent of what we see on that sketch is good to go,” says Dechter, “but then there’s the 10 percent when you’ve got to make some decision, or come up with some creative way to deal with something a synthesizer can do that a real orchestra can’t.”

USING SYNTHS AND ORCHESTRA TOGETHER Basically, if the synths sound good, and the orchestra sounds good, it will all sound good together. —Pete Anthony, Orchestrator

Current film scores with acoustic instruments or orchestras are more likely than not to have prerecorded electronic (and sometimes acoustic) elements. The composer or orchestrator will be working with these elements when he orchestrates, and there are a few factors to keep in mind. Electronic elements can fill a lot of space and often be quite complete in themselves. If anything, there is the danger of over orchestrating if the electronic music is actually scoring the drama rather than supporting the orchestral music with exotic colors or a rhythm groove. If the electronic music is scoring the drama, then be supportive with the orchestra; if the orchestral music will be doing the job of scoring the drama, then use the electronics for color, rhythm, and support. You will sometimes want to clear away space for your electronic elements. “If there’s a heavy synth element in a cue,” says Pete Anthony, “a lot of synth drones, for example, you might want to avoid having the orchestra doubling that stuff in the same register because that starts using up a lot of air space. Low register things have a whole series of harmonics, so it makes it muddy.” This is so even without the complication of electronics. “I pretty much know for soft woodwind solos you can’t have all the cellos playing in a very rich register—you won’t hear the woodwind over the sound. It’s not weighted naturally. So that’s an air space problem.” Anthony points out that there is a related acoustical phenomenon that contributes to this problem. “When the direct sound completely obliterates the reflected sound off the walls, the room sounds smaller. Engineers talk about how a room collapses when the orchestra gets too loud” (see Chapter 18). The orchestrator has to avoid acoustical overload by doubling the electronics too much, especially in the lower register.

TYPICAL ORCHESTRA SETUPS In the world of symphony concerts, the makeup of the symphony orchestra has

On the track

480

conveniently been standardized since the early nineteenth century, but in film work and studio recording of all kinds, only the instrumentalists needed for that day are hired. This has made composers very sensitive to the value of each instrument in the orchestra, because budget realities usually mean that you can only contract what you absolutely need to get the required dramatic effect. The decisions about the makeup of the orchestra must be faced before composing, based on color needs and the cost of the musicians (including instrument doubles). You should plan to start the recording sessions with the largest orchestra you will need, then drop down to various smaller size groups in subsequent sessions (or overtime periods of the basic sessions; see Chapter 5). There are some favorite orchestra setups to achieve certain orchestral sounds. When the full-bodied symphonic scores are orchestrated and recorded, the traditional symphonic orchestra is typically used, with instrumentation of from 65 to 100 or more players. The string resources may vary, but the winds and percussion will follow a predictable pattern. A typical large recording orchestra (a full symphony orchestra) is: 3 flutes (piccolo and 2 flutes) 3 oboes (2 oboes and English horn) 3 clarinets (2 clarinets and bass clarinet) 3 bassoons (2 bassoons and contrabassoon) 4 French horns 4 trumpets 3 trombones (2 tenor trombones, 1 bass trombone) 1 tuba 4 percussion 1 harp 1 piano (or other keyboards) 1 guitar 1 upright or electric bass 1 drum-set player 33 (subtotal) 16 first violins 14 second violins 12 violas 10 cellos 8 double basses 60 (subtotal) 93 Total

Composing

481

This is a big orchestra, but even so, “with Danny Elfman,” says McKenzie, “we often will increase the brass to 8 or 12 horns, 4 trumpets, 8 trombones, and a tuba. He uses a slightly smaller string size sometimes to allow for more brass or woodwinds.” McKenzie says the orchestra for Goldsmith’s The Sum of All Fears was typical: woodwinds in 3s, 6 horns, 3 trumpets, 4 trombones, 1 tuba, 5 percussion, 1 piano, 1 harp, 30 violins, 12 violas, 12 cellos, and 8 basses. “Routinely,” says Anthony, “on the big, big movies I do, we have 60 strings or so, sometimes a few more, sometimes a few less. The critical ratio is your brass and your strings. Do you have a fighting chance to balance the string section against whatever brass you have? So the more brass you have, of course, the larger your strings. If you’ve only got 3 trombones and a tuba, and 3 trumpets and 4 horns, 50 strings is probably fine. If you’re going to add more trombones and trumpets, and you’ve got 6 or 8 horns, now for there to be any sort of natural balance, you’ve got to add strings.” Never have 2 violins in unison—that is the worst sound you’ll ever hear —Scott Smalley, Orchestrator Smaller String Sections String sections vary in size, depending on the budget and the ability of the mixing engineer to get a “big” string sound on the scoring stage. The preferred minimum string section for orchestrator Jack Hayes was 16 violins, 4 violas, 4 cellos, and 3 basses, but there is common agreement that you can get very good results with 12–4–4–2. For television and smaller independent films, though, the budget may not allow even that minimum. For the 1979 television movie The House on Garibaldi Street, Charles Bernstein’s largest string section was 10–4–4–1, “and it broke down to 8 violins at some point. My philosophy of writing for 8 violins is that they usually sound best not divided if they’re going to be in the upper registers. And they don’t sound bad divided 4 and 4 if they’re in the low register (probably the low part of the staff, depending on the key and context). I’d say the lower two strings on the violin, and particularly the G string, have a rich, warm color, and 4 seem to be quite adequate to hold one voice down there. Whereas up on the E string you can’t do wonderful sweeping melodic lines for 8 violins and expect it to sound like much. If I didn’t have the resources to do it, I wouldn’t assign that to them. Sometimes you can beef it up with a flute, and let harp and/or piano accent the attacks, and that can cover up a multitude of omissions, too. But sometimes (on the E string) you can divide 8 into 3, 3, and 2 and it can sound great if the music is staccato, or if it just happens to fall right in the situation.” Brad Dechter orchestrated music for the “Moonlighting” television series, and found himself working with 10, 3, 3 and 1. “If we wanted a 3-part harmony, what we would do is you use 2 violas and mix one viola and one cello, and then on the bottom you have 2 cellos, and you get a nice three-part sound.” To get a large orchestral sound, Scott Smalley suggests no less than 8 violins, 4 violas, 4 cellos, and 2 basses. “To go one level lower would go: 6 violins, 3 violas, 3 cellos, and 1 bass. And with that I can still get an orchestral sound but at that point it will start to take on that chamber-type sound. I will blend and combine the sections when I have numbers like that, where I’ll have the violins playing low with the violas, and the violas

On the track

482

compensating with the cellos, and I’m voicing them together as a unit.” If you are careful to avoid intonation problems, you can supplement your acoustic strings with sampled strings, either prerecorded or added after scoring. Even with larger orchestras this is sometimes effective if you need to intensify sharp marcato passages and accents (see Chapter 20). Chorus Voices are used more and more frequently as a separate “section” of the orchestra. A typical chorus might have anywhere from 20 to 40 voices (Goldsmith’s The Omen had 32). John Williams is one composer who records voices simultaneously with the orchestra; many other composers will record them separately after the orchestra has been recorded.

KNOW THE INSTRUMENTS A long-standing suggestion for learning to orchestrate has been to learn every instrument. Composer Gerald Fried, a symphonic oboist, firmly believes that “every composer should study every single instrument he’s going to write for, even if it’s for two weeks. You get a feel for the problems. When I was on tour with orchestras I would go out of my way to room with the viola player, room with the bass player, just so I could hear them practice, and they would give me lessons. Just so I knew what it feels like to play a bass part or a viola part.”

SHORT CUTS Like everybody else I’ve found ways of getting the music done. I think I’m rather good in the come sopra department. —John Addison

Come sopras (coam-ay soap-rah, Italian for “like above”) are instructions written in the score telling the copyist to recopy the designated bars. These are indicated in the score by the bar numbers from which they are to be copied (Figure 16.12). Note that the words come sopra don’t themselves appear in the score, although this is the name used universally to describe the proce- dure. Come sopras are much-used time savers that put great responsibility on the copyists who must jump back and forth in the parts to find these “copy-backs.” The copyists rarely make mistakes on these instructions, but mistakes are a potential hazard. The toughest and most error-prone, according to copyist Rick Vettraino, “are the come sopras from another score because we’re not sure what the composer had in mind. We know he’s given us numbers, say from cue 1M3, bars 23 to 41, for example. When the come sopras look wrong we try to make a phone call and find out if it’s right or wrong. The disaster of

Composing

483

our lives was a case where the composer asked the copyist for a come sopra from another score but also come sopras from the same score done in the same cue, plus a come sopra where he had to transpose into a new concert key. We were an hour-and-a half on the scoring stage recovering from that because I had nothing on my score except all these come sopra indications. I didn’t know where we were—I couldn’t follow anything. That was really a nightmare. One hundred percent of the time we try to fill in the come sopras from the other score and photocopy the pages and paste them in.” Come sopras can be musically valid as well as a practical compositional technique. “One can use material already used earlier in the score,” the late John Addison explained, “but tailor it in such a way that the whole thing sounds as if every note of it was written especially for the cue. Since repetition of themes is quite often a very good thing in film (if it isn’t overdone), I found that that was one way of getting more mileage. “It’s usually a question of making little links, cutting them up—different beginnings, different endings—that kind of thing. Once in a while (not often), I might have said to the orchestrator, FIGURE 16.12 Come sopra/col example.

‘Do that cue, but rescore it as follows.’ And sometimes you will use a basic idea and then add in some countermelody or something. In fact, if I’d ever thought of doing it, I might have done it before I had a time problem.” Col (coal) indications are also time savers. Col means “with” in Italian. Instruments playing in unison with each other need not be recopied in the score. The legend “col flute,” for example, is sufficient. Indicate the desired octave (or correct transposition on a transposed score) by also notating the pitch of the first note of the passage in the correct octave.

On the track

484

ORCHESTRATION SCHEDULES Composers always say, ‘Call me if you have any questions.’ There’s no time for questions. Figure it out. We’ll see you there. Good luck. —Pete Anthony, Orchestrator

The busiest orchestrators in Hollywood have their own average number of pages they expect to complete each day. This keeps them on schedule and allows them to plan their work. Of course a busy action cue is going to take a lot more time than a quiet scene scored for solo oboe and strings, but it averages out. Gordon Goodwin averages 5 or 6 minutes of music a day on a complicated score. “Typically I estimate 10 to 12 pages a minute, depending on the tempo. It could be 50 pages a day. That’s a 10- to 12-hour day.” “Usually,” says Anthony, “if I can’t get 10 or 12 pages done in a day I’m very depressed. I’ve had plenty of 5- and 6-page days and I’ve had a couple of 30-page days. Usually I’m aiming for between 10 and 15, hopefully 20. And those are long days. It’s intense. It’s no 8-hour day.” “I do as little as 5 pages a day,” says Mark McKenzie, “and as much as 20 pages a day depending on the scope and complexity of the music. The slow days are intense and difficult days that I dread. Each page has 4 bars. We finish about 11/2 minutes of music a day.” Scott Smalley doesn’t hesitate to say, “I’m a 30-page a day guy.”

CHANGES One thing that has impacted greatly on orchestrators and their schedules is the many changes in the film editing that go on throughout the entire process. In the early nineties there was more time. “We had four weeks to do a film, for my participation,” says Dechter. “The composer was working on it before. Now I’m lucky if I get a week and a half from my first score to the scoring stage.” With the dominance of digital editing came the ability to make changes quickly and with much less discretion. Trying another version was relatively easy and fast. So you now see scores with “Version 6” written after the cue number. Many of those cues have been reorchestrated for each version. Composers are understandably reluctant to send their sketches out to be orchestrated too early, worrying that the film will be changed and the orchestration will have to be redone. But there is no avoiding the issue of film-editing changes. “It’s inevitable that we will always be struggling to catch up with the changes the filmmakers are making,” says Anthony. “There are revisions where you’re rewriting a cue because a scene has been restructured or just radically changed. Sometimes you just throw it out, sometimes you’re able to save parts of it, if the composer’s writing real sectional music. Sometimes in the editing process certain sections will stay intact. But digital editing of a film in time is totally different than the process of editing music, which has an internal logic and a

Composing

485

tempo of its own that you can’t just chop up. It’s not like cutting a couple of beats of someone walking across the room. You’re not getting rid of footsteps, you’re getting rid of beats of music, which can totally change the meaning of it.” Brad Dechter explains the different degrees of revision: “I got a change of 1M1 which I did last week, and it was simply to double the trumpets with flutes from bar 37 to 43 and then delete the trumpets in bar 22. So that’s easy. But if we have a whole section, bar 37 to 63 is basically a total rewrite or with significant changes, then I have to sit down and do it again.” Anthony started working in the early nineties, and notices that the biggest change has been the necessity for multiple orchestrators on a project. This is a direct result of the shortening schedules due to all the revisions. “I used to do an entire film by myself. Now that’s almost unheard of. Now it’s often a team of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 orchestrators. I’ve seen cases where there’s 8 or 10.” With so many orchestrators on some projects, Goodwin, like his colleagues, finds himself at times supervising. “Part of my job when I’m in a more supervisorial role is to know who can do what, and who I can call upon and have more than one name that I can call upon, that I know can do the job so I can rest easy and not worry about it. But inevitably there are still questions, so that takes up a lot of time. And it adds up. It can be quite amazing. To the point where I’ve had times where there have been so many people I’ll hardly do any writing on a film.”

OTHER PRACTICALITIES Marking the scores There was a time when scores would have a great deal of information on them: timings every bar or two, depending on the tempo; indications of significant film cuts and action; bits of dialogue. Now many scores contain little or no information of that sort, but it is a good idea to put in at least whatever markings and notes about the drama that will assist the conductor (whether that is you or someone else). This might include any notes about how a meter is subdivided (2+2+3 for a 7/8 bar, for instance) and perhaps double bars down the page to help the conductor visualize the dramatic (or musical) phrasing. Information about tempos, clicks, and streamers can be vital. If there are any changes required on the scoring stage, you’ll want all the information you can get. Bar numbers Bar numbers are a necessity on the scoring stage, where references to specific bars are made constantly. There should be a bar number under every bar (see Figure 16.12). You should additionally insert double bars down the length of the score from time to time so that players (percussionists, for instance) with many bars of rest will not see “68 bars rest” or something similar. Select changes in the music for these double bars when practical. Phrasings and bowings

On the track

486

Much time can be saved on the scoring stage if all orchestral parts are phrased. Strings are a different matter, and there is not general agreement about phrasing and bowing markings for the strings. Violinist/concertmaster Paul Shure was Jerry Goldsmith’s concertmaster for many years, until 2001. He recommends that the parts show the musical phrasings rather than bowings. Here’s how he worked with Goldsmith: “I usually go ahead and do bowings and phrasings on my own, and then wait for Jerry, if he doesn’t want that, to change it. The idea is to make the phrasing come off in the recording, and sometimes the microphone technique is not the same as being in a hall, and so sometimes different bowings and different phrasings work better than what’s been put on the page. Very often a long arching phrase is better with free bowing in the string section, where the phrasing is the same but people are free to use different bowings or change in different places, so that the line isn’t broken up. On the other hand, there are some places where a phrase calls for an accented note or a repeated note where we must do the bowings the same way, and that’s more or less the concert master’s responsibility. If there’s, for instance, a very bravura or fast passage that is marked legato and he’s not getting enough definition, I might suggest that we try doing it in separate bows, or staccato or something like that, or two-in-two double phrasings and so forth.” Dechter agrees with this approach. “The string players prefer that I mark phrases and let them figure out upbows and downbows, for instance. I’ve looked at a lot of classical music, and there are very few bowings on Beethoven’s scores. And Brahms’ scores. There are slurs, and there are staccatos and there are accents, but is this a down bow, is this an upbow, are we going to change bows in the middle of this phrase? That’s something I don’t presume to know. I tend to err on the side of musical phrasing, and let them decide the bowing, unless it’s something very specific that I am 100 percent clear I know I want. On the other hand, Smalley likes to be specific. “I do everything. I used to get a lot of flack from certain concert masters here in Hollywood, they’d be asking me, ‘Is this on the string, off the string?’ blah blah blah, constantly. Now, I’ll take the same kind of score with the same exact bowings that I’ve indicated to London, and their bows will go exactly with my bowings. And I never hear one comment, never one question, and it is exactly the way I hear the music in my head. Is it that they are more trusting, do they have more classical training with orchestras? I don’t know. I think perhaps here in Hollywood the orchestras come up with so many different varieties of unprofessional type of compositions being thrown at them that they constantly are on edge, are constantly in a questioning mode of, ‘Is this really what you wanted?” Paper size If a large symphonic orchestra is used and it includes perhaps 1 or 2 keyboards, a harp or two, and extra percussion, unusual instruments, or soloists, the paper size can get huge. This gets to be a problem for everyone; you can’t fax oversize scores, you can’t photocopy them except on special machines, and they are difficult to handle on the podium. Anything larger than 11×17 creates these problems. You’ll find anything you need in Los Angeles at a specialized music store such as Judy Green Music in Hollywood. Green will customize your paper for your particular needs if you wish.

Composing

487

Pen/pencil or computer Whatever you are comfortable with is the best choice, particularly on a tight schedule. Some orchestrators will use Finale or some other notation program for part of the job and then do the rest by hand (see Figure 16.7 for an example of this). You can prepare all your pages with a notation program, including instrument designations, bar numbers, meters and meter changes, and then do the actual orchestration by hand. Or you can orchestrate in a notation program and then add all the phras-ings and markings by hand if they take more time on the computer.

THE BUSINESS ASPECTS OF ORCHESTRATION The A. F. of M. (musicians union) designates union scale for orchestration, depending on the size of the orchestra. Each instrument is counted as a line, with certain variations, which should be verified with the union. The result is a calculated page rate for each 4 bars of music for a particular size orchestra: the larger the orchestra, the higher the page rate. Whether or not you are working with union musicians, this gives you a sense of the comparative billing fees for your orchestrations. As of this writing the premium orchestrators in Hollywood receive $80 a page, regardless of the size of the orchestra. Like other music budget expenses, this will continue to increase over the years. Over the course of a score, the difficult, complex pages balance out the easier, less dense ones. Anyone wishing to receive more than union scale must discuss this with the composer and negotiate with the producer before beginning a project. There is an hourly rate charged for the sort of time that an orchestrator puts in as a supervisor, MIDI transcriber, or other related tasks, and this, too, must be clarified in advance. It may be necessary to explain the extra pages charged for the many revisions. All of this adds up and on a tight budget can be a real shock to the production company. “So we need to make sure that it’s cleared ahead of time,” says Dechter. “Otherwise, we can run into problems. So, communication, communication, communication” (see Chapter 25).

SCORES FOR STUDY The reader is urged to study on DVD or videocassette the illustrations cited in this chapter, some of which are listed below. The Art of Orchestration There is something to learn about orchestration from every score you listen to. Analyze orchestral balances; the interplay between electronic, percussion, and orchestral forces; the evocative use of solo instruments to personalize a moment or character; the judicious use of fewer instruments when the dramatic occasion requires.

On the track

488

Full Symphonic Scoring There are many contemporary examples of symphonic scoring with orchestras ranging between 85 to over 100 players. Some good examples would include The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings (2001) and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), both by Howard Shore; Harry Potter and the Socerer’s Stone (2001, John Williams); Star Trek—The Motion Picture (1979, Jerry Goldsmith); and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982, James Horner). The landmark scores of John Williams, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977); the Star Wars films; Superman (1978); Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and many others, are textbook studies in fine orchestration. Many scores by other composers, including Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, James Horner, James Newton Howard, and John Debney, will be very instructive. Studying these scores with the CDs or, when available, a DVD with isolated score, will facilitate your study. Spare Orchestration For an effective use of transparent, spare orchestration, study Goldsmith’s score for The Sum of All Fears (2002). His orchestral choices evolve from his composition, so consider also the effectiveness of such an economy of means. Strings To hear how extremely effective a string section can be in furthering the drama, study Williams’ score for Minority Report (2002; see Figures 13.3 and 15.1.) Solo Colors For a score created by a single solo instrument, view The Third Man (1949), featuring a solo zither played by Anton Karas. Miklós Rózsa’s score for Spellbound (1945) features the very effective solo sound of an electronic theremin within the orchestra. These are early examples of concept scores. For contemporary scores featuring solo instruments, listen to the use Thomas Newman makes of individual instruments, both as solos and collectively in small ensembles of sound; American Beauty (1999) and Pay It Forward (2000) are good examples.

Composing

489

17 TECHNICAL AND PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS Timings Calculating the Click of Any Tempo, Using a Stopwatch If you ever need to determine the approximate click equivalent of any tempo, start the watch as you start to count from 1 to 25. Stop the watch on the 25th beat. The reading on the watch will be the same numerically as the equivalent click. Remember that clicks are calculated in whole numbers plus eighths, so if the watch reads :10.5, the click equivalent of that tempo is 10 and 4/8, or simply (not 10 4/10. If the watch reads :11.25, the click equivalent is (see Chapter 8). Calculating the Click Equivalent of Any Metronome Reading See Figure 8.4 for a chart listing the conversions between clicks calibrated in film frames and metronome beats per minute, and page 114 for the method of conversion. Note that there are only a few exact conversions; most of the metronome readings have been rounded off to the nearest hundredth. A 14-frame click, for example, is equivalent to a metronome reading of =MM 102.86). See the table below for the round number conversions of clicks to metronomic beats per minute. Film Clicks

Metronome 8

180

9

160

10

144

112

128

12

120

15

96

16

90

18

80

20

72

On the track

490

224

64

24

60

STREAMERS Streamers and punches (page 112) can be very helpful and often indispensable conducting aids on the scoring stage. Be sure to get all information to the music editor in time for the cues to be properly prepared (see Figure 17.1). The music editor can work from a score copy or from written notes faxed or e-mailed to him. Refer to the video SMPTE timings. The music editor will use Auricle (or another system, perhaps Streamline) to prepare the video. These systems are quick and allow for on-the-spot changes on the scoring stage if necessary.

RECORDING 1. Don’t compose as though you will be recording in layers if you plan to record everything live simultaneously. If you aren’t recording the soft bass flute solo as a prerecorded track or an overdub, you can’t expect it to be heard above screaming brass and pounding percussion. 2. If you do your own orchestration, indicate on the score all dynamics and phrasing for the orchestra. This will save time and ensure a sympathetic interpretation of your music. If you use an orchestrator, be sure all those markings are in your sketch or discuss the dynamics with the orchestrator thoroughly before he begins his work. 3. Keep it playable if you want to finish in time and with a good performance. You may not have time to properly rehearse extremely complex music. 4. Consider, and make note of, any special effects you may expect the mixer to add on the scoring stage (digital delay, reverb, special stereo placement). 5. Bring any prerecorded tracks to the scoring stage on a format that will be compatible with the studio’s available equipment, or make arrangements to have the necessary equipment brought in ahead of time. Almost anything you need can be rented for your sessions if you make those plans ahead of time (see Chapter 18).

PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS Keeping Healthy Working on a film score, whether you are composing or orchestrating or doing the music editing, is extraordinarily demanding. The days are long, and there are usually no weekends off. It’s a marathon and requires some attention to your personal wellbeing. If you don’t take care of yourself you will not be able to do the work. This subject may not

Composing

491

at first seem to be relevent in a text on film scoring, and these suggestions may seem elementary, but there are composers and orchestrators who have seriFIGURE 17.1 Timings and Film Information on Sketch.

ously damaged their health by not prioritizing their working conditions. Here are some tips to maintain good health: 1. You’ll be sitting for hours every day, so you’ll need a chair that will not strain your back or be the wrong height for your workstation or desk. If you are orchestrating, don’t use score paper that is unusually long (more than 18″ or 19″, for instance); it will cause you to stoop way over your desk when you work on the woodwinds at the top of the page. 2. Your posture is important. You’ve got to support yourself properly and give your organs space rather than caving in on them for hours on end. Get up every hour and walk around a bit. Stretch even while sitting down. 3. Design your studio so it is ergonomically safe and comfortable for you; otherwise you are a candidate for carpel tunnel syndrome. And keep the electronics in your studio setup as neat and orderly as possible. Too many cables strung back and forth will be disruptive creatively and also will pose difficulties when any troubleshooting needs to be done in the studio. 4. You cannot work without good lighting. Several companies make natural light tubes, containing the full spectrum of light; use these. 5. There are cases of composers and orchestrators having respiratory problems because their studios were not providing them with fresh, clean air. Get yourself an excellent air purifier and use it. If it has a filter, clean the filter regularly and replace as needed. 6. Don’t use permanent marking pens for anything in the studio. They are toxic. Switch to nonpermanent felt markers, pencil, or something else you like. 7. Keep replenishing your water intake. Experts recommend 4 ounces or so every fifteen minutes consistently throughout the day. Drinking 8 ounces at a time and then no water for several hours is not as effective. Tea, coffee, sodas, energy drinks don’t count as water: they tax your kidneys. 8. Avoid monitoring at excessively loud volume levels. If you use high levels you’ll lose your hearing, bit by bit. It’s not the memory that goes first, it’s the mid-range. 9. Develop skills in meditation and practice Yoga, Tai Chi, or Qi Gong (chee-gong). These disciplines are powerful methods of stress reduction. You may think you are

On the track

492

strong enough to get through periodic all-nighters and around-the-clock stress, and you may be for now. But practicing these arts will keep you more relaxed, mentally resilient, and increase your resistance to psychological and physical erosion. 10. Pay attention to what you eat. Study the experts and adapt an appropriate diet. You will also be better able to tolerate the occasional lapses of junk food and other gastronomic indiscretions that are inevitable. Writer’s Cramp If you work with a pencil for 10 to 14 hours a day, as some composers and orchestrators do, you may find yourself constantly dealing with writer’s cramp. Mark McKenzie has worked his way through this problem. “I have spent thousands of dollars and I know other guys have as well on physical therapy to try to get over writer’s cramp.” One solution is to change from pencil to pen (either an ink pen or a nonpermanent fine-line marking pen, like a Flair). This reduces any need or inclination to apply pressure as you write. If you do use any sort of pen, you’ll want to get an electric eraser (nobody’s perfect). Physical therapy is another option to consider. Running Finished Cues In Sequence It is a good idea to run long sections of the film with your mockups (or final cues if you are self-performing the score) dubbed onto the video. Do this at least for each reel if you cannot play the entire film through. In this way you will get a better sense of the overall impact of your score and also be able to analyze any weak areas that will need further work. Music Preparation An experienced professional copyist or music preparation service is an important member of your team. Not only will they prepare all the musicians’ individual parts for the scoring sessions, but by coordinating with the music editor, they will be able to keep informed of all editorial changes that may necessitate revisions on their end. They will be of invaluable assistance as you work your way through the inevitable changes that occur during the composing process, working with your orchestrator(s) and music editor to ensure that your work on the scoring stage will go smoothly. If your scores are orchestrated in concert pitch, there will be an additional charge for transposition (for parts like B-flat trumpet, French horn, English horn, and so on). If your MIDI sketches need to be refined before sending them on to an orchestrator, your music preparation service will be able to handle this as well. Your copyist will be on the scoring stage with you, prepared to make changes as necessary, assign new parts to members of the orchestra, execute cuts in the score, and so on. Entire parts can be adjusted and printed out while the conductor rehearses and records another cue. If you work with a music preparation service, someone there will be assigned to supervise your project. If they are preparing the parts for an entire film score, there will be a number of people working on that score, especially because a good deal of the music

Composing

493

is liable to be delivered to them during the last few days prior to the scoring sessions. This, too, is excellent insurance for the composer, guaranteeing that everyone’s efforts will be coordinated efficiently and properly. There is a fee for this service; at your request the musicians union will send you material pertaining to these fees. The music librarian (or music preparation service) will create a chart for the scoring stage indicating details about all the cues you are recording, including which (and how many) instruments play on each cue. Sometimes referred to as a breakdown chart, this is a necessary checklist to be certain that all music that has been composed and copied is recorded properly. See Figure 17.2 for the breakdown chart prepared by the JoAnn Kane Music Service for Jerry Goldsmith’s Sum of All Fears score. Proofreading Proofreading is really a must. There is a charge for proofreading, which will be listed separately on the bill (and on your budget estimate if your contractor and music librarian help to create this estimate). The time and anguish that proofreading by an experienced professional will save while you are recording will be more than worth the expense. Parts with missing bars, inaccurate accidentals and transpositions, even missing parts will disrupt a session, and a proofreader will locate and correct any such problems. A fine proofreader also will spot errors in your score and correct them without troubling you about those details unless questions arise. Doing It Yourself If you are planning on acoustic sessions and you don’t have the budget to hire professional copyists to extract the individual musicians’ parts, you can do this yourself with the aid of your sequencer or a notation program if you are extremely facile with a good program such as Finale. Be sure your program transposes the parts for those instruments that require this (such as French horns and B-flat trumpets) and check accidentals for compatability with the key signature (avoiding illogical enharmonic equivalents that will not be easy for the musicians to read). Don’t be unrealistic about how much you can do. You’ll never be able to prepare the parts for a full-scale orchestral score by yourself. Your time will be completely occupied with composing the score.

PREPARING TO RECORD 1. Plan on dressing comfortably. Any clothing is appropriate if it suits you and puts you at ease. 2. Bring everything you will need. This might include two batons if you are conducting (keep a second nearby on the podium in case you drop or break one during a cue); water and some small snacks—fruit, nuts, energy bars; pencils and/or pens (including several colors in case you want to make easily distinguishable notes on your score); and a stopwatch of some sort to keep track of the total elapsed time between breaks

On the track

494

(this will be done by the contractor if you have one; otherwise you might assign a friend to help you with this). 3. If you conduct from the full score, bring along your sketches also. You may need to refer to them while you are rehearsing to check wrong notes. Organize them in score or recording sequence, but in either case be sure you can find a specific sketch if you need it. 4. Plan on arriving at the scoring stage early. There is nothing worse than being stuck in traffic ten minutes before the start of a session. 5. Say hello to the mixer and crew, the director and other filmmkers who might be present, the contractor, your orchestrator, music editor, and the musicians. If you are early enough this is a good time to go over any last-minute instructions. If there is nothing left to do, relax at this time, enjoy greeting the musicians and hearing them prepare for your session.

SAVE YOUR MUSIC The more composers rely on computers, the less notation there is and consequently the greater the chances are that film music will not be properly preserved for future performance and study. MIDI information is rarely added to orchestrations, nor are the instrumental parts played by guitars, percussion, and other instruments either created electronically or combined with electronics. Even if you save copies of your fully orchestrated scores (which you should), the written documentation of your score will be incomplete. Consider as examples the orchestrations for the Main Titles of Thomas Newman’s scores for The Player and American Beauty. Without the electronics, percussion, and rhythm section instruments, these scores are so incomplete they are unrecognizable. Please don’t underestimate the importance of retaining and preserving as accurate a documentation of your music as possible. This would mean saving the MIDI information on an archival-quality format (CD-ROM is more stable than a Zip disc, for instance); retaining copies of all orchestrations for your scores; and saving copies of your final mockups, which will also document the essence of your music and any missing MIDI and improvised elements.

CHECKLISTS Music Contractor • Give the music contractor the name of the project. • Give him the project category (television, feature film, documentary, commercial). • Give him the dates, locations, and duration of all sessions. • Give him the instrumentation for all sessions. • Give him your first-, second-, and third-choice musicians for each instrument, or discuss which, if any, musicians you specifically request and which the contractor is free to select.

Composing

495

• Give him any unusual instruments and instrumentalists needed. • Give him the duration of call for each musician on all sessions. FIGURE 17.2 The Sum of All Fears (2002)

• Give him any budget information (for instance, if the budget does not allow for overscale for any musicians, or if rental fees must be under a certain maximum amount). • Get from him the budget estimate and an itemized breakdown. Music Editor

On the track

496

• Inform the music editor as to whether or not you wish timing sheets for all cues. • If so, give him your notes preferences (how subjective, how much detail, all dialogue?). • Give him your final starts and outs for each cue; confirm original start as per notes whenever there is no change. • Give him all information regarding location of streamers and punches. • Give him your choice of streamer length if you wish. • Give him all information regarding the number of warning clicks you want for each cue (if you are using clicks). You can use these warning clicks up to the downbeat to start the cue, even if you choose not to conduct the cue to click.

• Give him all changes in cue numbers (due to recording one cue as two or more shorter cues). • Give him all information regarding any new cues added since spotting. • Give him all information regarding any cues dropped since spotting. • Give him all information regarding dates, times, and locations of scoring sessions. • Give him the name, address, phone, and fax numbers of the copyist.

Composing

497

• Get from him the spotting notes and ask him to send the notes to the copyist, producer, director, and orchestrator. • Arrange with the music editor for delivery of all timing notes. • Get from him the appropriate click for all scenes containing visual performances, marches, dances, and so on, to be postscored. Orchestrator(s) and Copyist • Give the names, addresses, phone and fax numbers of orchestrator(s), supervising copyist, contractor, and scoring stage to the orchestrator(s) and copyist. • Give them all information regarding dates, times, and locations of all scoring sessions. • Tell them the size of the orchestra, and the length and complexity of the score. • If you wish the scores to be transposed, discuss this with the orchestrator. • Tell the orchestrator how much timing detail, if any, to transfer from your sketches. • Tell the copyist how many photocopies of the orchestrations to make, and whether to staple the pages or tape them (stapling is cheaper, but more difficult to work with). The conductor’s copy should always be taped. • Prepare a list of the cues to be scored at each session, in the sequence you wish to record them, and give this list to the copyist no later than the day before the session. Keeping similar cues together is usually the most efficient way to organize the cues. If possible, start the session with something relatively easy for the full orchestra, and at least a minute in duration so they can warm up. This also helps the mixer. In general, it is better to avoid starting with an extremely important cue (like the Main Title).

On the track

498

V RECORDING

Recording

499

This page intentionally left blank.

On the track

500

18 RECORDING: THE SCORING STAGE The scoring stage is the high point—from there on it’s all downhill. —Jerry Goldsmith

When I walk on that scoring stage and I hear that music, it’s probably the single, biggest moment far me—it’s absolutely magic time. You spend weeks with a film, in one form, then all of a sudden… —(1985) John Burnett, Film Editor

The cues are not born on the podium on the scoring stage like they used to be, they’re put together brick by brick in the composer’s studio. —(2002) Gordon Goodwin, Orchestrator

DESPITE THE PRESSURES of time and money, the recording sessions undoubtedly provide the peak experiences of the whole film-scoring process. It is here that the music really comes alive, and is the primary focus. The sessions on the scoring stage are a complex mix of music, recording and film technology, budget control, and psychology. The composer will be coping with the director and producer(s), the mixing engineer, musicians, the music editor, contractor, music supervisor, possibly a conductor, orchestrators, a music preparation librarian, and the technical crew. He must be thoroughly prepared to deal with all of these personalities under high-pressure circumstances.

THE SCORING STAGE The score is recorded on the scoring stage, a term the movie industry uses to loosely differentiate it from a recording studio, the scoring stage having video projection capability (television monitors and sometimes large screen projection) and ordinarily a large enough space to record an orchestra of at least 30 musicians and up to 100 or more. The distinction is not critical—film music has been recorded in commercial recording studios—although generally speaking these facilities may be less prepared to fulfill all the technical demands of recording a film score. Scoring stages have a full array of

Recording

501

recording equipment that is comparable to that of the best commercial recording studios. Recording engineers (mixers) and composers are able to choose any scoring stage they wish (within budgetary limitations), and the mixers usually have their favorites, depending on the nature of the project. “Are we going for a tighter sound or are we going for a very open airy type sound?” mixer Robert Fernandez will ask. For example, “ToddAO is a much larger sounding room and a little more articulate, whereas Sony is a little warmer and blends things a little better. Or you could go to a place like Warner Bros., which is a nice, punchy big sound, or Paramount or Fox. Decide on what the sound is you’re going for.” Large scoring stages are expensive, so for lower-budget independent films and television a smaller room will be much more practical if they can go fast and handle the music’s technical demands.

UNDERSCORING, PRERECORDING, AND SET RECORDING The term scoring, or underscoring, refers specifically to the process of putting music to film after the film is shot. When the music is recorded before the picture is shot it is termed prerecording, prescoring, or playback recording. This method is used not only in musicals, where the actors hear the playback recording on set, but for the many situations in nonmusical pictures where an actor has occasion to sing or play an instrument. If the music is recorded simultaneously as the performance is being shot on the set, it is called set recording, or standard recording. This gives a very realistic effect. ’Round Midnight (1986, Herbie Hancock) is an example of effective simultaneous recording and filming. For the film, the shooting set was actually built on a scoring stage.

SCORING PRIMARILY OR COMPLETELY WITH ELECTRONICS Most lower-budget films and television series and long-form projects are package deals (see Chapters 5 and 25). In most of these cases, there will be a great deal of selfperformed electronic scoring, and in television it is most likely that virtually the entire score will be electronic with perhaps one or more live instruments overdubbed. Solo acoustic instruments for these projects are very often added at the composer’s studio, but if the score calls for a session with a small or medium-sized ensemble, you will most likely need to locate the appropriate scoring facility. If you are working with a contractor to hire union musicians, the contractor may be able to suggest places that will negotiate with you for a lower hourly price than their published rates. Otherwise, using research resources such as the Hollywood Reporter Blu-Book or the Recording Musicians Association (RMA) resource book (both published yearly) will get you started with the phone calls and networking necessary to successfully secure an affordable room. There will be similar information resources available in cities other than Los Angeles and New York (perhaps the local union office, or even the yellow pages). If there is an educational facility in your area that teaches recording, contemporary media, film scoring, or commercial music production, they will be able to help you locate the facility you need, or may even have one available on their premises. Normally you will engage a recording

On the track

502

mixer separately. Even within the framework of a home studio, you can still save money. Mixer Michael Stern, who works through his company Mick Stern Audio in North Hollywood, suggests the possibility of mixing onto CD-ROMs if you don’t own a hard disc cartridge. You will want to be sure to check the studio’s ability to work with this format. Each CD-ROM has a limited amount of storage space, so you and your mixer may need to work around this on longer cues, but it may be worth it. As an alternative you can always rent a cartridge. For the best sound, says Stern, “There is a sound to mixing everything in the box and you can get a good sound, but for my money you still get a bigger sound by taking the Pro Tools system and using all the great outboard effects.” By using any special dedicated effects processors, for instance, that the small (or home) studio has, and perhaps renting a few high-quality reverb units that would make a significant contribution to the final sound, you can save thousands of dollars with an investment of a few hundred dollars.

PRERECORDING ELECTRONIC TRACKS It is common practice to prerecord electronic elements and bring them onto the scoring stage on Pro Tools or some other similar format. Robert Fernandez explains, “We take the Pro Tools material and transfer it off to another machine, a Sony digital machine. We run Pro Tools occasionally if we don’t have enough room on the tape machine to spread the stuff out. Because my orchestra usually goes on two 24-tracks, or 48-track digital. And the synth prerecords will go on another 48-track machine. Oftentimes, if there are more than 48 tracks (in a couple of cases there have been beyond 100) you need to condense or do a lot of head scratching to get it up on the consoles nowadays. Most of the big consoles now are 96 inputs, but you can access the smaller faders on the consoles to bring in other stuff.” Edward Shearmur typically comes to the scoring stage with somewhere between 16 and 30 tracks or so, mostly in various stereo stems. John Powell, like most of his colleagues, also delivers a six-track mixdown of everything (in 5.1 surround sound format). “Within Pro Tools, we can then mute the string demo, take that out and record the real strings, or if it’s a percussionist, we can mute the percussion tracks and he can play against different things. And then once it finally goes to the dub, anything that’s within the Pro Tools session can be opened up or muted or altered within Pro Tools, and is sent to separate outputs and mixed by the mixer.” This has become standard operating procedure. Most composers like the added flexibility they have with all the mockup tracks and a 6-track mixdown on the scoring stage and also during postscoring mixdown and dubbing. The mixers like it, too. “You’re actually walking into an orchestra session with anything up to a 64-track or more master that you’re wrestling down to record the orchestra with,” says mixer Alan Meyerson. “And then when you mix you have all this flexibility. You have a tremendous amount of choices. The beauty of Pro Tools is not in the speed that it adds to the sessions, it’s in the control that it gives you.” When a mix gets too complex, some mixers will premix certain elements down to a lesser number of tracks, but this is a matter of the combined choice of

Recording

503

the composer and mixer in any given situation.

PRERECORDING ACOUSTIC TRACKS AND SOLOISTS The same techniques apply to the prerecording of live musicians and soloists. In most cases there will be prerecorded electronic material to record to. If not, most often the first musicians brought in to record will be laying down rhythm tracks for the cue, playing to a preselected click. A soloist can easily overdub to these rhythm or electronic tracks, and then if orchestra is to be added, these tracks are brought to the scoring stage.

PLANNING I usually figure to record 15 minutes of music a day in two threehour sessions, and that’s 7 1/2 minutes a session. Even though, with an hour of music to record, I’ll put a fifth day in there. —Jerry Goldsmith

From a business point of view it’s important to me that we be very productive. These musicians in Los Angeles are the greatest red light players that there are, so why shouldn ‘t we go fast? —Pete Anthony, Conductor

In the United States, a full day of recording with union musicians is two 3-hour sessions, called a double session (with a possible additional hour overtime). The minimum length for a scoring session is 3 hours (see Chapter 5 for exceptions) and the term session generally refers to three hours of recording. As discussed in Chapter 5, the sessions using the largest orchestra are scheduled first, then the smaller group sessions, and scheduling is planned on the expectation of recording an average of 2 to as much as 5 minutes of music per hour (each “hour” being really 50 minutes after deducting the musicians’ 10minutes-per-hour break). Five minutes of recorded music per hour is a difficult rate to maintain; feature films are likely to average no more than 2 1/2 to 4 minutes. This averages the slow pace of the first hour (when recording balances are set) with the increased efficiency of the subsequent hours. Rehearsals, any corrections, changes requested by the director or producer, equipment failures, and playbacks are also included in this average. Music for television shows is expected to be recorded even more quickly. With experience, solid technique, and excellent preparation, film scoring can be quite efficient, even on complicated symphonic music. Ken Wannberg, John Williams’ music editor, says, “Our scoring sessions run extremely smoothly. And John can do twenty minutes a day, and has. That’s a lot, and it’s hard music. So, I think we’ve got a pretty good system.” Many of his scores are very long, so they’ll record “12 sessions, something like 6 full days. Still, there’s an awful lot of music.”

On the track

504

Specifically, it usually depends on the complexity of the music and technical demands. “I’ve been on many [single] sessions where we got 8 or 9 minutes,” Pete Anthony recalls, “and I’ve been on some single sessions where we got 22 or 24 minutes. And one session where we got 30 minutes. In terms of industry standards, you would expect to record 6 to 7 1/2 minutes per session (or 12 to 15 minutes per day).” The added complexity of one or more soloists may slow down the scoring process. “Shipping News [2001, Christopher Young] was about 9 days of scoring,” says Fernandez. “There’s quite a bit of music and it’s complicated stuff in the sense that there were a lot of intricate parts, you take the solo fiddle, the hurdy gurdy, and all those things incorporated in the orchestra, and getting the proper balance with that and the dialogue. Instruments like the hurdy gurdy and Uilleann pipes, they have a way of poking through a little too much at times.” Other factors that slow down the process are adding electronic instruments, overdubbing, multiple playbacks, and changes by the director or producer.

THE MIXER The composer’s job is just to write the music and have to deal with the director and producer. And not have to worry about all the other stuff that shouldn’t be in his mind. —Robert Fernandez, Recording Engineer

The composer’s best efforts will be wasted without a good recording. An expert and experienced mixing engineer is vital. To do his best, he needs to know in advance the instrumentation, the composer’s point of view (is the score symphonic, keyboard oriented, rhythm-section oriented?), and the type of recording technique (a CD type of tight sound or a more open and spacious traditional film sound?). He has many options to choose—whether to use close miking, multimiking, tracking for isolation, tight baffling with everyone wearing headsets, minimum baffling emphasizing acoustic contact between players—and the composer’s input can help him set up most effectively. He can make alterations in response to your reactions after hearing the early takes, but timeconsuming microphone and seating changes take up precious recording time and quickly raise the total session costs. There used to be staff mixers at the major studios, but that practice slowly changed during the eighties and nineties. Robert Fernandez was the last staff mixer in Los Angeles, leaving Warner Bros. at the end of 1994. Since then all the mixers freelance. Everyone hires their own engineer for each score. Meeting with Mixer Prior to Recording When you select your mixer and his deal is made with the production company, get in touch with him about your score. The more involved he is from the beginning and the more he knows about your music, the more prepared he’ll be to get the best sound for

Recording

505

your music. “More often than not I’ll initiate the contact myself,” says recording engineer Dennis Sands. “I have a number of conversations with as many people as I can, starting with the composer, just to see what he or she has in mind, what the basic context of the score’s going to be. Certainly if there’s a lot of synthesizer that’s a whole other issue. And then that gives me an idea how to set the room, what to anticipate as far as what we’re going to need to do to record and mix, what kind of machinery I need, how big the setup is, if there’re synths how to interface the synthesizer, etc. Then I may have a conversation with the orchestrator or orchestrators to talk about the orchestra itself, how big, if there’s anything special in terms of the orchestration.” Sands finds that individual composers and orchestrators have different tastes and requirements. “For example, I work with Danny Elfman, and Steve Bartek is his orchestrator. Sometimes we will set up the orchestra so that we split, let’s say, 1st and 2nd violins because he’ll orchestrate specifically for answering between those parts. And we may have some other special setups. For Planet of the Apes [2001] he had a huge brass section, actually almost double normal complement. So we set the room specifically for that. So it’s certainly not common but there are instances where the setup is designed specifically relative to the orchestration.” Other factors can play a big role in determining the scoring stage setup, Sands continues. “If there’s a rhythm section inside of the orchestra, that has to be dealt with specifically. If there are key soloists, guitars or special wind instruments, things like that, that has to be dealt with. It’s really necessary to have quite a bit of conversation and do a lot of homework prior to scoring.” Fernandez makes certain there is a line of communication to the composer throughout the process. “We’ll have our initial conversation and I’ll say, ‘If things come up I’ll call you, but will just make these short conversations so I don’t pull you out of what you’re doing. Or if you have a question just call me immediately and we’ll take care of it.’ “Then he works closely with the music editor, orchestrator, and others on the composer’s team. Alan Meyerson tries to get CDs of the mockups and prerecords when available. “With a guy like Hans Zimmer, Hans likes to have me involved quite early on. He likes my input, so I tend to be involved pretty much from the start of his writing.” Equipment The mixers request any special equipment they need that the studio will rent and have in place prior to the session, including special monitors if requested. Reading the Score Some mixers read scores while they work, others don’t. You need to know if they want them; if so, get a set to them in plenty of time for the sessions. Although a cue you finish the night before your next session won’t arrive until sometime near the downbeat, your mixer will be able to see at least a good part of the score ahead of time. When an engineer mixes with the score, he is usually looking for solo parts or significant lines that he may not be hearing. When this happens, he will ask the conductor

On the track

506

to adjust the orchestral balance to bring out that line with more clarity. Sands works this way and emphasizes, “It’s not about reaching for the viola mic but getting that dynamically in the room. It’s a much, much better way to go. Let’s say there’s a second violin line that’s lovely but there’s not enough on it, so can we borrow some of the firsts which have a real high line which maybe need fewer bodies on it. If you don’t read the scores you’d never know that. Could be a line that maybe wouldn’t be noticed at the moment that you wish you had later on.”

PRODUCING THE MUSIC My job is really to produce the recording as opposed to conduct. —John Powell

It is easier for me when the composer is in the booth but it’s a little tougher for the orchestra. —Robert Fernandez, Recording Engineer

This is the time when the composer might truly like to be in two places at once: in the studio conducting the orchestra to get the best performance, and in the booth supervising the mix. If you are able to conduct, you want the opportunity to work with the orchestra to interpret the phrasing, answer musicians’ questions, make the timing work out right, and quickly revise any passages that need a little fine-tuning. You also want to be in the control room to work with the mixer to achieve the realization of your score, fine-tune the balances, and communicate with the director and producer. However, because you can’t perform both functions simultaneously, you might base your choice on whether you are a better conductor or an audio producer. Even if you do both equally well, is your first priority direct contact with the mixer in the booth, or is it direct contact with the orchestra to shape the balance and performance? The decision is not always a difficult one. James Newton Howard brings in a conductor. “I let him be the bad guy. That’s just an exhausting job. It’s just a job I don’t enjoy. I’m extremely well prepared. We get together ahead of time with Pete [Anthony, his conductor], Richard [Grant, with the Auricle], my music editor, and Jim Hill [his electronic producer] and go through every score: check the clicks, check the tempos, take the clicks out, warning clicks, we’re going to do this here, so by the time he gets there everything’s completely marked and ready to go. So generally speaking by the time I get to the scoring stage I’ve already won. It’s already kind of a done deal.” Many composers now produce their scores from the booth. When they do, they communicate with the conductor with a “talk-back” microphone that goes directly into the conductor’s headset or, if the conductor is not wearing a headset, it can be switched to the speakers on the stage. However, Robert Fernandez comments that this can be an awkward way to work. “It’s a little tougher for the orchestra in that when there are suggestions or changes to be made, unless the composer walks out there and talks to them

Recording

507

directly, it becomes this ‘pass the message along through the conductor,’ so oftentimes it makes things a little slower, where someone that is conducting the music that has written the music can immediately just turn to them and say, ‘It’s this, it’s this, it’s this, it’s that.’ But when you’re dealing through a translator—the conductor—that tends to slow things down. And oftentimes the translation is not the best.” It is typical for the composer under these circumstances to go back and forth from the booth to the scoring stage as necessary to communicate more directly with the conductor and the orchestra.

The Composer’s Booth Representative If you decide to conduct, you need to have someone in the booth whom you can trust to ensure a fine recording (one that fits your musical and dramatic intentions), and someone who will be honest, responsive, and diplomatic in communicating with you from the booth. In a low-budget situation you will not have the option of postmixing and may not have time to hear every playback while maintaining your schedule. Because you can’t always hear misbalances and mistakes on the scoring stage, you need a representative in the booth who can serve as your alter ego and make critical observations regarding orchestral performance, intonation, picture sync, instrumental balances, and orchestration. The better the mixer, the less your booth representative (audio producer) has to be concerned about the mixing areas (like balance and sound quality). But there is no chance to go back and rerecord cues after the musicians have gone home; if there is no time for a final playback, you must be able to trust his judgment when he says a take is okay—and go on to the next cue. Many composer/conductors rely on their mixers to take this role. They develop a working relationship with a mixer with whom they work on a repeated basis and know that they have learned each other’s tastes and preferences in any given situation. The orchestrator may be in the booth when not on the scoring stage, and in any event will offer another set of highly trained ears. If you wish, you can hire someone specifically to work in this capacity, and there is an A.F. of M. scale for this function. “Sometimes some of the mixers I work with are more active and they’ll become like the orchestrator or the producer in a way,” says Pete Anthony, “like Shawn Murphy or Dennis Sands or Bobby Fernandez, they’ll say things like, ‘Pete, the low brass are killing me there.’ Or, ‘We’re just not getting enough of the oboe solo,’ or ‘I’ll help the piano in here; just tell him to play softer, it’s not sounding good if he plays too loud.’” Scott Smalley describes how he works if he is in the booth: “Typical things that I would come back to the composer in response would be, ‘Okay, bars 4 through 8, the strings have to come down one dynamic level here; at bar 15 the trumpet is peeking out too much there—he needs to come down a dynamic level; over here we need to have the violas play up more because their inner line is getting lost.’ So it’s mainly performance issues. We try to get the orchestra to mix itself internally. Intonation, yes, I’ll say, ‘We need an A.’”

Preparing the Scores

On the track

508

By the time you are on the scoring stage, you should have already gone over your score and your interpretation of it with the mixer and/or your booth representative. The orchestrators, of course, know their own orchestrations. For the mixers who use your scores, and for your booth representative if you have one, there is a good marking system available to identify the principal and secondary instruments in the score: the starts of principal ideas are marked with a red felt-tip pen and secondary ideas with a blue one (see Figure 18.1). This can be done very quickly and is easy to follow. Avoid toxic permanent markers for this; use nonpermanent ones instead. Special notes about unusual reverb or other sound processing should be clearly noted on the score, as well as indications about any overdubbing you intend to do later. The mixer and booth rep should be told about all such details before the session. The scoring stage is usually set up at the end of the day prior to the next day’s session.

Selecting a Conductor If you decide to be in the booth, you will need an excellent conductor, one who will prepare for the session and one who will work well with you. Previous film experience is essential. You must go over each cue with him to explain any matters regarding performance and synchronization. FIGURE 18.1 Afterglow (1987)

Recording

509

© 1987 Rayburn Wright.

CONDUCTING When you get on the scoring stage, you ‘re reconstructing it. Not that there aren’t great moments, but it isn’t quite the same as when you’re standing up there and you hear the music come to life for the first

On the track

510

time. —Gordon Goodwin, Conductor

I’d say about 20 percent of what I do is free timing and the rest of it is clicked. —Pete Anthony, Conductor

I spend a lot of time rehearsing with an orchestra free of the click. As a kind of a reward for myself for getting that far. —Harry Gregson-Williams

Although much of the music today is scored to click, there is still plenty for the conductor to do. “For me,” says Gordon Goodwin, “they’re less looking at me to tell where on the beat to play than to be confident that, yes, you’re coming in here, and with my body language I’m saying, ‘Let’s go for this, okay hold on, now back off.’ I think it’s more interpretive things that they get from me than, ‘We’re behind the click.’ “They do rely on the click. “They sit there in front of a lot of bad conductors. They know that the click will not betray them, so they know if they play the notes and play with the click, that’s a minimum level.” However, not everything is clicked. There are times when shifting back and forth between click and free timing will be the best solution. “We can have sections that are clicked and sections that are free,” says Anthony, “often within the same cue. It all depends on the composer.” Conductors will often keep their headsets half-on/half-off so they can hear the sound in the room as well as the mix in the headset. This helps them achieve a natural balance with the orchestra and still be able to hear any softer instruments or synths in the headset. The click will be coming through the headset also, but this can come and go. “Composers aren’t really constrained by how a living breathing musician is going to make a tempo change,” Anthony says. “They’ll make radical tempo changes with synth which are a nonissue for synths. The experienced composer will take into account that we [in the orchestra] have to somehow play with the electronics.” Uneven Meters It is a good idea to be sure that any uneven metered passages are indicated as some sort of subdivision on the score. 13/8 won’t give you enough information; you really need to see 7/8 + 6/8, or whatever the actual pulse of the music may be. If you are using a click on those passages and you are working with the Auricle or some similar system, all this can be mapped out ahead of time so that the click track reflects these internal accents reflecting the music’s basic pulse. Electronic Passages

Recording

511

The prerecorded music is rarely ever written into the score, so during these passages the score will show only rests for the orchestra and perhaps a wavy line indicting that the prerecorded music is playing. In these situations it is easy for a conductor to lose sight of where he is, especially in a long prerecorded section, and giving yourself some cues along the way will be a big help. This must be done in advance when you are marking your scores.

CONDUCTING AIDS The Auricle The Auricle is the primary conducting aid for any music with clicks, although it is also used to create streamers and punches even without click running. As discussed, it will have been programmed prior to the session, complete with a specified number of warning clicks prior to the initial downbeat, and any streamers or punches desired. A specialist is assigned to operate the system; this can be coinventor Richard Grant himself, your music editor, or another specialist you bring in. Click Tracks When used, click tracks will be designed most often to be continuous throughout a cue, with built-in ritards, accelerandos, and tempo and meter changes. The conductor at his discretion may request that the clicks be taken out for certain passages and then perhaps brought back in at a specific moment in the score. Streamers and Punches The music editor can provide these two visual aids as desired; they are particularly helpful to the conductor when he is using free timing rather than clicks. Streamers A streamer is a line superimposed on the video so that it appears as a vertical line that moves across the frame from left to right at a speed that is controlled by the length of the scribed line. If you want something different than the normal three-foot (twosecond) streamer, you can ask for it in either feet or seconds (one foot equals two-thirds of a second). Whether you are using free timing or clicks, the music editor will normally prepare, for each music cue, a warning streamer (usually red) and a start streamer (white). The start will be either the first downbeat (that is, bar 1, beat 1) with any pickup notes coming ahead of the streamer, or the first note of music. A reminder to yourself on your score as to which system you are using will be helpful, especially if you use both systems during the course of the session. If you are conducting and have a preference, inform the music editor before he prepares the film for scoring, and be sure to indicate the placement of :00

On the track

512

on your score. Punches Punches are short sequences of light pulses produced by the Auricle or another computer program. These can be used as preparatory blips to set the start tempo of a free-timing cue, or to show the downbeats of any bar or any other moment you choose in a nonclicked cue. The music editor needs to know the conductor’s preferences. On-the-spot alterations are possible at the recording session. Warning clicks If the cue starts with audible clicks, ask the music editor how many warning clicks there are before each cue. Four bars at a fast tempo ( = 9-frame click or faster), two bars at a moderate tempo ( = 10 to 20), or one bar at a slower tempo = 20 or slower) will be comfortable for you and the orchestra. Indicate this information on the upper left-hand corner of the first page of your score. It can be very helpful to use only the warning clicks on cues that will be conducted without click. These conducting aids will give you more freedom in slight deviations from the click; when you are in free timing, streamers will provide you with a road map of key points in the scene. Place them wherever you wish; not only at any moment you wish to hit but also at phrasing moments in the drama, important cuts, and so on. “And I’ll put some punches in the bars before a hit just to make sure I’m close,” says Anthony. “You set up a hit, set up your signposts in advance of it, and then you can nail the hit.” How close can you get with only streamers and punches? Ken Wannberg describes a typical situation for John Williams: “On Monsignor [1982] in London we did a cue, it was a Gloria piece, and it was like five minutes long, with chorus and orchestra. We did it twice, free timing, and you could lay those up against each other and cross from one to the other and it would be the same. Amazing! He takes streamers. He doesn’t like to use a lot of them. He uses the clock. No punches, they bother him. He has his inner timings, and if they’re evened out, if you go from :00 to his next streamer, which is maybe 30, 40 seconds away, all the bars in between are not evened out to make that happen. They may be a little slower, a little faster, very musical.”

FILM SOUND “There’s a difference between an underscore sound and an obvious record sound,” says recording engineer Dan Wallin. “I must say that recordings made specifically for films with that idea in mind always sound better. They have to be grander for the big screen than for that tight record mix. You need a much bigger room sound, or more ‘space’ in the recording. That kind of overall sound just makes the whole thing sound richer and warmer and more unified as an orchestra.” Dennis Sands elaborates: “There’s actually quite a huge difference. First of all, in film score you have to understand what the purpose of the music is. The music lives to serve

Recording

513

the film. In the record world, there is nothing else but the music. So it exists on its own. So in the film world it has to live inside dialogue and sound effects. And you have to be able to record in such a way so that the music will end up having enough presence to it to be able to function inside of these other sound elements. “By the same token you still want to maintain the size and dimension of, let’s say, a large orchestra, for example. For orchestra, probably 70 percent of the sound is with five microphones, mostly the room mics. I have a pretty extensive collection, now, of mics and truly, if they’re the right mics in the right spot, they do a lot of the work for you. But it’s still very handy to have some spot mics around to help. Woodwinds, and I like to help the basses out to give a little bit of added warmth to the bottom end. A little harp. With the orchestra less is more, always, with recording. To me, if you can capture the room, diffuse the amount of mics, and adjust the dynamic in the room acoustically it’s the best mix possible. If it sounds good in the room you should be able to make it sound nice on tape. Guys coming out of the record world, their experience base is to mic everything.” Still, there will be times when spot mics and tight recording are perfect. As Alan Meyerson says, “It depends on what they’re looking for. If it’s more of an action type of thing where they want a very immediate sound, I might mic it differently. Sometimes they want it to sound a little more old-fashioned, so I might use more ribbon mics than tube mics, or whatever. Every score is unique in that way, and you have the whole laundry list of decisions you have to make to tailor the recordings to the score. That’s the greatest virtue of having meetings before recording. Especially if you have a guy with a vision who is going for something in particular.” That vision is a concept; the score’s concept can affect not only the music but it’s recording and performance. Meyerson continues, “In the world of movie making now, where everything is so much larger than life and you’re competing with sound effects that are massive, and pristine dialogue, and digitally recorded production dialogue you better put your stamp on the sound and make it something special or you’re not going to stand a chance.” The lower frequencies of the score become less audible at low listening levels. Recording engineer John Richards considers it important to adjust for this. “I am always mindful in film and television work that there is enough bass content on the tracks. If you are left with the mids and the highs, it will sound very thin and empty. So just a little more bass needs to be incorporated in the original recording.” This is especially true for music that will be dubbed under soft dialogue sequences. Technical knowledge on the part of the composer is not a necessity but in order to get a first-rate recording it is desirable to know as much as possible about the process. Such knowledge will also help the composer to understand what the mixer’s concerns and problems are so you can establish a more collaborative relationship during scoring. Dan Wallin notes that a basic technical awareness is important for a film composer: “It would make it a lot easier for them to communicate with me if they knew exactly what they were asking for. They would ask me for a certain amount of delay or flanging on something, or more reverb or a different color.” (See the “Bibliography” for recommended reference materials.)

On the track

514

RECORDING FORMAT Despite all the improvements in digital technology, musicians and mixers still generally prefer the warmer sound of analog tape. Alan Meyerson recorded Hans Zimmer’s score for Gladiator (2000) with two 24-track analog machines, “and boy, did it sound good!” For orchestra, in 2002 Dennis Sands still recorded to analog 15ips Dolby SR. “I just feel that analog for orchestral elements just sounds so much better. The digital world sonically is not quite there yet. And one of my issues with the sound of films in general is they’re a little bit metallic sounding because they’re released digitally. But over time it’s certainly going to improve.” More frequently, though, scores are recorded onto digital formats, including in some cases a hard disc format such as Pro Tools. There are some projects with so many tracks required that analog formats become impractical. There were cues in Zimmer’s Black Hawk Down (2001) that had over 250 tracks, and you’ve got to use a format that will more easily accommodate that many tracks. And with so many last-minute film edits and potential music changes, analog is so much less flexible than a format like Pro Tools that it is becoming increasingly difficult to work with. With Pro Tools you can demonstrate a cut in the music almost immediately, which is a big production advantage for everyone.

HEADSET MIXES Each player will have been given a headset in which he can hear a “cue feed” containing click alone or click mixed with a variable combination of some or all of the orchestra mixed to best help everyone play together. Prerecorded elements may be mixed into cue feeds if the conductor believes it will facilitate a better performance. This is especially true when the prerecorded elements are very rhythmic. Some scoring stages provide headsets for both ears while others provide the option of having single headsets so the players can have one uncovered ear to hear the other instruments acoustically. When single headsets are not provided, the players often move one of the two ear pieces away from their ear and place it against their head so that they can hear the orchestra acoustically with one ear. Cue mixes are extremely important in film scoring. Different members and sections of the orchestra will want different elements in their headsets, and mixed differently. “The cue systems can be very complicated,” Sands says. “Typically, there’s a guy who just deals with the cue system. For example, string players like clicks only, the percussion section on the other hand wants the whole orchestra mix plus clicks, and it’s on and on. And then on any given cue, those cue mixes will vary.” Concertmaster Paul Shure emphasizes Sands’s observation about the string section’s needs. “Most string players only want the click or the rhythm section, but we detest hearing ourselves in the phones because we don’t get a true picture of what we’re doing (as opposed to a single soloist who can).” You can move the click a bit earlier if you are recording an intense rhythmic passage with the strings and you want them to be edgy and on top of the beat, or feed them prerecorded percussion elements that already push the beat. Conductors request

Recording

515

their own specific mix of elements. Usually they want to hear everything the booth is hearing so there is a frame of reference when they communicate. As for the prerecorded synth parts, the orchestra may listen to prerecorded rhythm and percussion parts, but most composers and conductors don’t play any of the sampled orchestral parts in the headset mixes, playing them only in the booth should they or the filmmakers wish to refer to them. Hans Zimmer is an exception. “I spend forever putting every dynamic in and every nuance and everything. I take care and try to get my point across, and my point at its most pure, of course, is in those synth demos. So I don’t want to change my dynamics now, I want a human interpretation of this, but what I’ve written is what I’ve written. And most of the time that’s what I want to hear.” Preventing Click Leakage Preventing the sound of the click from being picked up by the mics can be a problem, especially with tight miking. Mixing engineers continually have to ask the players to turn off headsets that are not being used and to turn down the volume of those that are. One problem for the mixer is that very loud passages require a louder click. When the music becomes softer the click bleeds into the mics. One sensible solution is to have the click’s master volume turned down when the softer passages occur. The music editor may have a click volume control at his desk next to the conductor’s podium. Whoever does this, the conductor and mixer must remain alert to this problem, as click leakage can ruin a good take. In the past, some movies and soundtrack albums have been released with traces of audible click.

REHEARSAL PROTOCOL Sight reading is really all we do in the studios, and there are times when there can be a moment of terror. —Arni Egilsson, Principal Double Bass

No matter how carefully you compose the score, you need to get a performance that really works. The musicians rely on you to communicate your intentions clearly and directly. You know the music and the film, they don’t. Each time you start conducting, tell the musicians clearly where you are starting and how many free beats you are giving. As simple and logical as these suggestions are, they are often disregarded, causing misunderstandings and wasted time. Make sure every musician can comfortably see you and that the cue mix in the headsets is adjusted for them (with everyone understanding that this may be a “convenience” mix that doesn’t represent the final balances). Be sure everyone in the orchestra is ready to play before you give the first downbeat of a cue; percussionists may have to prepare different instruments from the previous cue; woodwind doublers need to prepare to play different instruments; synthesists need to make adjustments in their software; the double bassist may now be playing electric bass, requiring a move from one part of the stage to another.

On the track

516

Unless otherwise requested, the click will be sent to you and to the entire orchestra. If you are not using click to conduct your cue, you may still want to hear a sample of the click to listen to the starting tempo. Ask for a few bars any time you need it. If you want only warning clicks, you can ask for this. Just ask for “four warning clicks to zero-zero,” or “eight free to the downbeat.” This technique will be helpful in getting you started on a free-timing cue and will guarantee that the orchestra and you will start together on the initial downbeat (after which the clicks will be turned off). The first rehearsal is usually done without picture so that the conductor is able to concentrate solely on the music, although running the video with Pro Tools during a rehearsal does not take any more time than running without picture. Some of the video playback machines on scoring stages are amazingly fast, so use the video whenever you need it. If you are recording a cue without click, or are able to rehearse it without click, you may want to conduct this run-through without using the headset. If the cue is uncomplicated and your time is short, after the first or second run-through, now using the headset and hearing click if you so wish, you may be ready for the first take. The disadvantage of not using the headset on the first rehearsal is that you don’t hear the mix. Regardless of your preference, if time is short, it is usually advantageous to use the headset on the first rehearsal so you can ask the mixer for any balance adjustments you may want before you record. If time is limited, in general, it is not necessary to get a perfect performance in rehearsal before going for a take. A good studio orchestra will sound even better on a second or third reading of a cue, and a few well-chosen comments by the conductor may correct most mistakes without another complete rehearsal. Notice the performance problems during the first rehearsal, remembering wrong notes, misphrasings, faulty dynamics, or unwanted sounds. After the rehearsal, quickly go through your notes with the orchestra, giving concise corrections to each musician or section as relevant. If there are a few bars that need special attention, rehearse these now. With experience, a conductor will sense when to take the time to clean up a performance and when it is not necessary to do so before beginning to record. However you handle this, it is a good idea to avoid overrehearsing, which can lead to staleness and even boredom on the part of the musicians. Jerry Goldsmith likes to use a rehearsal as a means of seeing what needs to be done. “A lot of times on a complicated cue, I’ll just read it through and quickly record it, and listen just to hear what the balance is like in the booth. And tell Bruce [Botnick] what I want. He will say sometimes, ‘I think the brass are too heavy.’ It may sound good to me on the stage, but sometimes we get too carried away with the percussion and the brass and it sounds wonderful on the stage and it’s not really sounding that wonderful. We think it is. It’s just loud is all it’s sounding. I mean, you go in the booth and you say, ‘Where are the strings? I don’t hear the strings.’ ‘Well, the brass are too loud.’ “This approach gives Goldsmith the reality check of hearing his music during playback in order to prepare him to polish the performance. Mark McKenzie, who orchestrated The Sum of All Fears (2002), will jump in at this point to make an orchestrational adjustment he believes Goldsmith will want. “While we were rehearsing a section of the Russian melody, the first time I heard one version of it, I just knew Jerry was going to want trumpets doubling the horns so I went out to [copyist]

Recording

517

Russ Bartmus and asked him to quick copy the section for trumpets because I had a feeling Jerry was going to ask for that. We had it underway and Jerry turned to Russ and said, ‘Hey Russ, how long would it take to give the horn line to the trumpets?’ We looked at him and said, ‘It’s almost done’ and had a laugh.” The orchestrators are there to help the composer, but they recognize that it will always be his call. “There are other times when I’ll be bothered by something and Jerry will say, ‘You know, Mark, that doesn’t bother me, let’s go on.’” Hans Zimmer likes the musicians to hear his mockup. “So usually what I do is I play them my track first. And I go, ‘Look, this is sort of what I intend, and you guys are a lot better at interpreting this, so off we go.’ And at first there used to be a bit of resistance about that. And now they actually want to hear it.” He has found this to be an effective means of communicating with the orchestra. Questions Don’t misinterpret questions from the musicians as being criticism. They may ask questions such as “Is the A-flat correct?” or “Do you really want that slurred?” The musicians want to get it right and in most cases are asking informational questions that should be answered simply and directly. Keyboards In Hollywood, keyboard players are expected to interpret and improvise in different styles. They like to be given the option of working out the assignment of parts with the other keyboard players, all of whom know each other’s specialties well. However, if you know a specific player’s strengths, write for that player and put his name on the part. If they are to interpret a scene musically or to interact with the story in any way, provide them with a video monitor and give them any conceptual information that could affect their contribution. Improvising to the film involves many performance decisions that should be directly influenced by the composer’s input and the dramatic situation. Communicating with the Booth Don’t assume the people in the booth hear everything you say to them. Your mic is sometimes turned off while they test other circuits or do a quick playback. It’s a good idea to encourage your mixer or booth rep to respond when you speak to them so you will know whether they have heard you. In a typical interchange the composer might say, “Please put some extra reverb on the English horn line at bar 29.” A simple “We’ve got it” from the booth keeps the communication from breaking down. Any suggestions the composer offers will be productive and appreciated. Otherwise, as John Richards says, “An engineer is left very much to his own devices to create what he hopes is going to be what is required.” All your advance planning and communication with the mixer will pay off at this time. Problem Solving

On the track

518

When players have ensemble or tuning problems, it is the conductor’s job to devise solutions. Musicians don’t respond well to being told they are out of tune or are not playing together. Make sure they can hear each other and give them a chance to rehearse these passages together while the rest of the orchestra is quiet so they can improve their performance. An impersonal remark like “Let’s try bars 7 and 8 to clean it up. Can you hear each other all right?” avoids any accusatory inference. You’ll get your best results when you provide a way for them to work it out rather than lecturing them. The musicians’ deportment at sessions depends on the conductor’s attitude. If the conductor is well-organized and knows what he wants, he will be respected when insisting on attentiveness. If, despite the conductor’s best efforts, discipline at a session is too lax—if there is too much talking or people are late coming back from the breaks— address this through the orchestra contractor. That is the contractor’s responsibility. Taking a Break The visitor from out of town who is invited to a scoring session might be amazed to see some of the musicians relaxing behind their music stands during a rehearsal. They may do this if they are not playing in that section of the music, or a brass player might relax while the conductor rehearses the string section in a difficult passage. Everyone might take it easy if they are sorting out technical difficulties in the booth. “You may be there from 9 in the morning to 7 at night,” percussionist Gary Coleman says, “and you can wear yourself out if you are tense and on edge all the time. So when you’re not doing something, to relax and look at a newspaper or do a crossword puzzle—that’s just a kind of nice quiet way to spend that brief period of time.”

CREATIVE RESPONSES What usually happens is they say, ‘Wow, this is so much better than the demo!’ But there are times when they say, ‘Boy, this is so much different than the demo!’ —Pete Anthony, Conductor

Everyone involved with a project becomes accustomed to the mockups, and is used to hearing the film scored with those performances. Suddenly, on the scoring stage, it can be a shock to hear an orchestral version that seems so different—not just in the studio sound and balances, but dynamic inflection, rhythmic performance, intensity, colors, attitude. The composer may be thrown by these differences, and in many cases may want to achieve a live performance that mimics the mockups. Think creatively about these differences. What can you make better than your mockups, and where do you absolutely require replication. In the latter instances, when the required results cannot be achieved with the orchestra, the sampled versions are usually used for those sections of the score. The composer should be constantly open to the creative possibilities that arise on the

Recording

519

scoring stage. A player using a different phrasing or playing something unplanned may trigger the realization of some new musical possibility, or hearing a cue may cause you to think of some minor changes that would make it more effective. The goal on the scoring stage is to achieve the most effective results, not simply a note-perfect reading of the score. Being able to think on your feet is a great advantage and an ability that should be developed. It is a good idea to really consider an accidental error in an instrumental part before correcting it without thought (see Chapter 21).

WORKING WITH THE DIRECTOR Hans Zimmer does such a good mockup of the music beforehand that they know what they’ve got. On the films that I’ve worked with him, the director doesn’t go to the scoring session. —Bob Badami, Music Editor

Directors ask me a lot of questions about performances. —Dennis Sands, Recording Engineer

Most directors hear most, if not all, of the score in mockup form prior to the scoring sessions. As a result, some sign off on the score at that point and may not even go to the scoring sessions (in some cases for practical reasons as well). Allan Meyerson has observed that “there are directors that want to be there for the performances because they feel that the live performances add so much to it.” “People change their minds,” Dennis Sands adds. “When you hear a live orchestra directors might get a little different thought about something or maybe, ‘Gee, I didn’t think about this but now that I hear that can we try this?’ “There is a middle ground between a director becoming so involved in working through the details of the music with the composer, which can take hours each day, and listening quietly without becoming involved to any extent. This middle ground is most often going to create a fruitful and fulfilling dialogue that will resolve many if not all of the director’s concerns that may come up during the scoring sessions. Even if the director has heard the entire score in convincing mockup versions, he will react differently to the scoring stage experience. Sands likes to see them in the booth, participating in the process. They ask him questions about the performance, and he will ask them if they want the last note longer for a longer tail out, and inquire about what they are planning on the dubbing stage with the sound effects for a particular cue, which will help him mix more appropriately for the situation. “Yes, he might take you down a path at the session that wasn’t necessary; yes, he might make you experiment with things or do things you wouldn’t necessarily like to do, but the bottom line is if they’re there and they sign off there then the chances of it coming back later as something that they don’t like are minimized. When it comes to the final mix I might not have to revisit something because he doesn’t like how big the brass is, or he doesn’t like the fact that the percussion is in this spot instead of this spot.”

On the track

520

CHANGES ON THE SCORING STAGE There are far fewer changes on the scoring stage than in the old days. —Daniel Allan Carlin, Music Editor

Usually it’s an issue of texture. It’s too big, it’s not big enough. It’s always relative to how it’s affecting it dramatically. —Gordon Goodwin, Conductor

I don’t use my orchestra sessions as sessions where the director suddenly goes, ‘Oh, let’s go and change it all.’ I don’t make fixes on orchestra sessions. —Hans Zimmer

Changes on the scoring stage are typical, and come about for a variety of reasons. You want your music to be as perfect and well-performed as possible. From the moment you begin to rehearse a cue, you will be looking for ways to make your music sound and work even better with the film, in spite of having heard your mockups dozens of times. Many times these changes are simply adjustments designed to achieve the finest performance possible. They may involve orchestral dynamics, balances both on the scoring stage and in the recording booth, the correction of wrong or miscopied notes, the addition of instrumental doublings to strengthen a particular line in the orchestration, the taceting (omission) of one or more instruments for a specified period of time (anything from a single note to the entire cue), or the changing of instrumental colors (a piccolo to a flute, a field drum to a snare). Being certain that the orchestrations include some of the potential doublings you might need will save a lot of time and effort on the stage. Cued parts are commonplace (French horns doubling the trombones or violas with the indication “cue only,” or clarinets doubling the flutes, for instance). If there are minor changes that can be handled during the session the conductor might call a ten-minute break and give the changes to a copyist to insert into the instrumental parts. The most straightforward changes can usually be dictated to the players by the composer or orchestrator while they adjust their parts. These adjustments may be the result of film-editing changes. “It’s happened several times,” Robert Fernandez says, “where we’ll go in the morning and we’ll record a few cues, and then in the afternoon the director will come back with the picture editor and say, ‘You know, that scene you did this morning, well we just added 8 frames to that.’ Oh yeah, it’s constant. Because the Avid allows them to do that. The days of locked picture are really gone.” A Pro Tools edit takes care of some of these picture edit changes without any rerecording at all. “Some of them you can do editorially later,” Meyerson adds, “but a lot of things you

Recording

521

can’t. A lot of things just have to be made right there on the spot. It happens all the time.” Even more complex changes, frequently the result of discussions with the director, will necessitate an overnight rewrite for the next day’s session, or even an extra scoring session added to the schedule. This has happened with a number of cues on some projects, which significantly increases the scoring expenses. During your sessions you must be prepared to react receptively to the filmmaker’s opinions and suggestions. While the typical range of opinions varies from throwing out the cue to raving about it, the most common reaction is somewhere in-between: an attempt to shape the cue differently— sometimes greatly, sometimes subtly. Some filmmakers express their dislike of the cues candidly, even in front of the orchestra, but others can’t find ways to express their reaction, and the music editor, orchestrator, or music supervisor may go out to talk to the composer to try to interpret their objections. Under ideal circumstances the filmmakers’ suggestions will be clear and practical, but under any circumstances it is the composer’s responsibility to understand the filmmakers’ concerns, so he can find the best and most creative solutions. This requires creative flexibility and a keen awareness of what the filmmaker is really saying. His objections will rarely have to do with the music abstractly. Usually his concern will be that the music is not doing what he wants for the film. In most cases these issues can and should be determined prior to scoring with detailed discussions about the mockups prepared for each cue. Changes and the Budget Sometimes long discussions and time-consuming changes can jeopardize the recording schedule. “You have to let the producers know that,” says former music executive Bodie Chandler, “and that’s when you say, ‘If you get the next two cues exactly to your liking, we’ll get no other music for the show and you’ll go on the dubbing stage without a score unless you incur significant extra costs.’ That seems to impress upon them the fact that we need to move faster. If you go more than an hour overtime, you may lose musicians, and if you don’t have an orchestra, you can’t record the music.” If you see this happening, be sure to talk to the contractor and music supervisor to get their advice and assistance.

RECORDING Most of the balances take place in the room, not with the engineer. —James Newton Howard

Recording the music is the most enjoyable part of the job. It makes all those weeks of long days putting notes on paper worth it. —Marc McKenzie, Orchestrator

On the track

522

Scoring with Electronics on the Stage Maurice Jarre decided to compose an electronic score for Witness (1985). The same group was on the scoring stage for five straight days recording the score, from about nine in the morning until midnight. He composed for six players; four keyboard players (including Michael Boddicker, Clark Spangler, and Ian Underwood), a pianist, and an Electronic Woodwind Instrument (EWI), played by its inventor, Nyle Steiner. There were scores being done in home studios at that time, but it was very unusual for an electronic ensemble to be assembled on a stage to score a film. None of the sounds were programmed ahead of time, so Jarre found himself describing each sound for each cue. This is an important skill to develop if you are going to be working with other synthesists in any context, but especially important if you decide to do any live synth recording blended with orchestra. You can use acoustic references, as he sometimes did for Witness—“I need a very large, rich bass sound, something you might associate with cellos and basses in an orchestra, very big and very rich”—or you might use the imagery of colors and nature, for instance. Role models of sounds you have heard and liked in the past are perfect for this purpose, but in most cases you’ll need to have the sound available for the synthesist to hear. The most efficient method is to preselect all your sounds and bring them into the session on CD-ROM or a portable hard drive format, as Jerry Goldsmith does. No matter how much care you take in choosing your sounds ahead of time, if you work with them live in the orchestral context, things change. “The first thing Jerry does,” says Mark McKenzie, “is come in and make sure they’re all sounding great. He doesn’t prerecord. He has Nick Vidar come in with Jerry’s MIDI tracks and then Nick runs them live while we’re recording, so he can change something if he needs to, which is a never-ending headache. That hasn’t happened on any movie yet. What does happen is they’re the source of more pain and misery during the recording process. Jerry is always unhappy with what’s going on or not going on. He uses a Yamaha synth, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, it’s very temperamental. It’s not always the way he heard it in his studio. And he’s always trying to get to that place. But Nick is tremendous, and having it there means we can change it, although oftentimes he’ll just say, ‘Uh, you know, let’s skip the electronics on this one.’ And then he doesn’t use them at all.” This process can really slow you down. Danny Elfman will often prelay synth parts on the scoring stage prior to the sessions (it is typical to prerecord these elements on a separate machine so you have no limitations in the number of takes you can make with the orchestra), then have synthesists lay down other parts live with the orchestra. In any live synth situation, says Fernandez, “What may slow us down a bit is if they have to look for a sound. Say the director says, ‘You know, I don’t like that sound. Maybe we can find something else.’ Then, of course, they’ll have to take time to find something that the director likes.” Despite the impact of this process on schedule and budget, the advantage of performing the electronic elements live is the potential for further shaping and adjustment during the scoring process. The advantage of prerecording these elements is that, although you are locked in to the exact tempo and the number of beats and bars if changes are necessary in those areas, you are guaranteed of getting the electronics to

Recording

523

sound exactly as they did in your studio. Mockups as a Frame of Reference Composers bring their mockups with them to the scoring stage, on Pro Tools or some other hard disc format, but they are seldom used for anything other than the occasional point of reference. Jonathan Price describes the sessions for Christopher Young’s Bandits (2001) score: “At any moment if he wanted to remember a solo or something like that that a player had done on some of the prerecords we could just pull it up and they could listen to it. Or the guitar players could listen to the sound they had done.” In this countryoriented score, Young used a number of live musicians on his mockups, so referencing a particularly tasteful solo was very useful.

WORKING WITH THE MIXER I’m very involved in the dynamics and pay a lot of attention to the orchestral dynamics in the room. —Dennis Sands, Recording Engineer

Composers develop working relationships with a mixer just as they do with a music editor, orchestrators, and others on their team. James Newton Howard works with mixer Shawn Murphy, and relies on him to act as another set of ears. “Aside from the fantastic sound that he gets, Shawn is really for me a traffic cop. He says, ‘This is too loud,’ he’s very involved in issues of intonation and performance and continually marking down in his scores what he thinks are the best takes for every bar in the cue, so that when I’m done I look at his scores basically and I know 99 percent of the time that this is exactly the best collection of takes that we want to use.” Howard, who works in the booth while Pete Anthony conducts for him, gives Murphy notes along the way. “I’m just giving him direction and I usually push him for more reverb on a solo instrument or a little bit less, or, ‘I need to hear the bones better,’ ‘Am I playing too loud?’ because as you know those rooms were mostly designed for 80 pieces and we routinely put 110 in there. That’s a typical Hollywood excessive way and things get really quickly out of hand.” The mixers get very involved, not only in the recorded sound, but in the music and the drama as well. All the sound elements they work with relate to the film. “I’m very careful about reverb itself for orchestra,” Sands explains. “And I’ll change the parameters of the reverb relative to a particular cue and as it applies to a movie. For example, a big action cue, I’ll tend to make that a little drier, especially if it’s a very, very active scene, a car chase or gun battle. Those sounds take up a lot of space. And so if you wash the orchestra out too much in reverb it will be hard for them to push it through during the mix.” This is a typical decision that has to be made: How much presence should the music (or even a specific musical element) have at any given moment? Sands continues, “You can do things like adjust the length of the reverb and it’ll help give a little bit of space. Also the amount of reverb. So I’m continually making these kinds of adjustments, just with the

On the track

524

orchestra. Then when you add synths in, it’s a whole other world.” Scoring under Dialogue Mixers are very cautious about competing with dialogue scenes; an unnoticed conflict on the scoring stage will be magnified on the dubbing stage. Sands notes, “If you have a solo woodwind part, let’s say, it’s important to be aware that if it’s playing under an important dialogue piece, even an oboe can be distracting if it’s too up front, if it’s too dynamic. It’s a mix issue but it’s important to deal with it in the recording process. The purpose of music for movies is to create an emotional context for a movie. The music doesn’t live on its own. There are many mix issues that come about as a result of that. “Ultimately, it may be a composition issue, and/or orchestration issue. I feel it would be my job to point that out. I would never by any means take a position as composer or even suggest such a thing, but I feel it’s important for me to say, ‘Well, we’re going to have a problem here with this oboe playing under this dialogue.’ Let’s say the dialogue is not recorded well or it’s whis pered. I might ask the director, ‘Did you guys loop this section because it’s a little hard to hear the dialogue there?’ Things like that, just to point it out. And then, after that, it’s really up to the composer and director to make that choice.” A typical mixing nightmare is a scene with soft dialogue recorded live at the beach, with the noise of the wind and water on the soundtrack. Usually any problems on the production dialogue track would be rectified with looping in postproduction, but it is something to inquire about. On a fast-moving television schedule, if the words were whispered to begin with and they cannot fix the dialogue, it will sound artificial if you increase the dialogue volume in dubbing.

PLAYBACKS On smaller-budget projects with more restricted recording schedules, there may not be time to hear playbacks after each take, but it is essential to have one or two playbacks early in the session so the mixer can adjust his levels and overall approach to suit the composer’s concept and to polish the basic sound quality of the orchestra. This also allows the musicians to hear themselves and react. There are many modifications they can make to improve the sound apart from the conductor’s requests. In such cases, when necessary, on subsequent takes and cues you can rely on the comments of your mixer and others on your team. Still, time permitting, it is always wise to play back all takes you believe will be print takes. On television projects, time is always limited. When you feel a playback is necessary but there is not time available during the session, ask for a playback of selected cues during the ten-minute breaks. This is often done, especially for television, and works well. On feature films, after a cue is recorded, the director may wish to have it played back with dialogue. If everyone feels the cue is working, you can play it back again without dialogue to be sure the performance is good. For television there is rarely time for many playbacks with dialogue. Listen to these takes on a break if necessary. It helps to let the

Recording

525

music supervisor or mixer know your playback plans in advance of each ten-minute break, or the crew may also take a ten and be unavailable during the break. If you would like mixing or performance adjustments on a take that cannot be rerecorded because of time constraints, be sure to tell the mixer and musicians anything you feel will help subsequent cues. Overall recording quality can be improved immeasurably by maintaining a continuing dialogue about balance, dynamics, and other performance and recording details.

OVERDUBBING (LAYERING OR STACKING) Some composers have adopted the recording industry practice of recording one group of instruments or soloists at a time. Beginning typically with the rhythm section (plus percussion instruments/sounds) and electronics, they then record the orchestra in layers, ending with soloists and finally choir and solo vocalists. Those who prefer working this way are passionate about it, including Hans Zimmer. “I always do that. Synths first, the click is your friend. Then the strings and woods, and then the brass.” Gladiator (2000) is an example of a score recorded using this procedure. There’s a good reason for this. During any loud brass passages, or passages with heavy rhythm and percussion (or, on action cues, both) there is so much leakage from these instruments into the string mics that they are overwhelmed by the rest of the orchestra, causing both the music and mix to suffer. The very effect you wish to create is undermined by this acoustic fact of life. Asking the brass to hold back, which has been the traditional method of controlling this problem, is rarely completely satisfying. “When I first started working here,” Zimmer says, “I thought, we’re making a recording. We’re not doing a performance here, so we do need to cheat anyway. I’m trying to get that same excitement across as in a concert and if I can make it easier for the string players to not be drowned out by the brass and I can give the brass complete freedom to be as outrageous as they want to be, great! Plus, when it comes to the actual dub, even if I pull the brass back in level, there’s still the intensity there. It’s clarity and there’s something else, I think, there’s clarity of intent when you talk to the musicians.” The biggest drawback with this system is that if the orchestra is never assembled together as a unit they will never get the feeling of the entire piece of music. String intonation can be tricky. To compensate for these realities, sometimes sessions will be planned so that the entire orchestra is called for the date. After rehearsals the strings and woods play their parts while the brass lay out. Then the brass overdub or stay at the end of the session after the strings leave. John Powell and Trevor Rabin are among other composers who also work this way. Of course, for a quiet, intimate score, this method of recording wouldn’t be necessary, especially with all electronics and rhythm section instruments prerecorded.

PRERECORDING AN ON-SCREEN PERFORMANCE Other than electronics and rhythm sections, often music is prerecorded to provide a

On the track

526

recorded performance to which the actors can lip-sync while filming a scene (including songs for animated films, for instance, in which case the animation is executed to the prerecording). Prerecording is done to achieve better sound quality than is possible with ordinary set recording (see Chapter 23). The procedure can be very involved. For example, in Back to the Future (1985) Marty (Michael J.Fox) plays guitar with a fifties band and amazes everyone as he moves through the history of rock-and-roll guitar. To get this effect, composer Alan Silvestri first had guitarist Tim May end his solo with a screaming Van Halen-type guitar solo on “Johnny B.Goode,” then a guitar coach transcribed what Tim played, and actor Fox actually learned to play the whole solo in sync with the prerecord. In the psychological drama The Deep End (2001), the lead character, Beau, is a trumpet player preparing a college audition tape. He is seen playing Ravel’s Habanera on screen, which was playing on the set. Peter Nashel, composer of the score, found Beau’s musical level of performance a difficult issue. “That was a really hairy thing, because we had to make his mistake look real, and we had to get a professional to sound like he was a really good 12th grader. This was something that I battled with the directors about because they wanted Beau to sound like a genius. I said, “A 12th grader who sounds like a genius—if you were to hear Midori play violin—but trumpet’s a very physical instrument, and I don’t think that you have as many 12th graders that can do that. Let’s just make him sound really good. He’s not applying to Juilliard. He’s applying to Weslyan University in the movie. So let’s keep that perspective, let’s keep it accurate. “We had somebody come in—it was like ADR [Automatic Dialogue Replacement] trumpeting. They were looking at him play and we had him just do a whole series of performances. We took essentially the best one and then we had to slightly edit little things. Take a little bit of a cracked note on one performance that was better than his final cracked note—merge that with the performance overall of one that was very good.” For vocals, a prerecord with voice, piano, and click is often done as a temp track (or “scratch track”); the piano is recorded discretely so it can be dropped later when the orchestra is added in a postrecording. John Morris did this with the vocals in Johnny Dangerously (1984) and the scenes in which Anne Bancroft sings and plays piano in To Be or Not to Be (1983). In cases like the “Putting on the Ritz” dance number in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein (1974), in which the taps were not prerecorded, you end up with an extremely complex sync job (01:20:39). The music editor has to “chase” the scene by creating a track with a click for every beat. The clicks follow the track as it slows down and speeds up. Then the orchestra plays to the clicks they hear, speeding up and slowing down when the clicks do—a nightmarish challenge that was accomplished on all the classic Fred Astaire movies soundtracks. These techniques and others have all been developed extensively for use in musicals and are discussed in more detail in Chapter 23.

TIME PRESSURES ON THE STAGE My sessions are very, very relaxed. I think if people smell the

Recording

527

pressure they smell blood. It’s a dangerous thing. —Trevor Rabin

It depends on the situation, but there’s always pressure. You know, there’s a lot of money on the line and that makes people nervous. —Dennis Sands, Recording Engineer

It’s not discussed that much (and rarely on the scoring stage), but recording the score for a television or motion picture project is a pressure situation. Budgets are as carefully protected in a $ 100 million film as a small independent film with a minuscule budget, and in many cases money that might have been designated for the music budget may already have been shifted to other production elements: editing, special effects, reshooting, extra looping, and so on. None of this should have the slightest impact on your scoring sessions. Keep them relaxed and as personal as possible. If you are not conducting, it’s a good idea to be with the orchestra just before each session begins to talk with the concertmaster and other players. Let them know that you are interested in them. An occasional touch of humor can contribute to the overall sense of relaxation and well-being on the scoring stage. It takes confidence to see the humor in an awkward situation, and the musicians will respond well to the interjection of a humorous comment during a minor crisis. If a guitarist’s top E string snaps just before a take, even if there’s 20 minutes remaining in the session, humor will be more productive than swearing. Hans Zimmer tries to keep the musicians relaxed about their performances. “I always say that to them, you know, ‘Look, look, I’d rather have a performance, if we have a couple of fiddle accidents in it somewhere I can always cut to the samples.’ So I like them to feel that there’s a safety net right away as opposed to… You know how it is at sessions, there’s a lot about it that is psychology. Make them feel comfortable, make them feel like they can dare things. Make them feel safe about things.”

RECORDING AWAY FROM HOME It can be a difficult adjustment to record in an unfamiliar studio, especially if you have traveled to a foreign country. You will need a contractor there to hire the musicians, arrange for any rental equipment and instruments you might need, and locate special soloists unless they will be overdubbed when you return home. Budgeting will be different if you are not in New York or Los Angeles. Mixers are often engaged by a composer to travel to New York or London to score a film. Robert Fernandez has his own equipment here in Los Angeles, including his favorite monitors, so he wants to be sure he has the equipment he is used to when he travels. “We usually have probably a month or so notice. Whether I’m in New York or in London, I try to get the same equipment so I have a constant reference point. That’s never been a problem.” The studio used for the scoring sessions will bring in whatever is needed for

On the track

528

the dates. It gets decidedly more complicated if you go somewhere in the middle of Europe or elsewhere, as Alan Meyerson discovered when he scored part of K-19: The Widow Maker (2002) in Russia, where securing the proper equipment was not as satisfactory. “We were afraid to send things over because we weren’t able to get the proper paperwork done in time, it all happened very fast, and I wasn’t sure if I sent my expensive microphones over whether I’d ever get them out. So I wasn’t going to take that chance. I had a list of equipment that I knew the studio had and I figured I could get by with. And I did. They had one machine, a 24-track hard drive format. It was a very nice sounding room, it just didn’t work very well. Came out great. We were thrilled with the way it sounded, though getting the performance was hard. We moved pretty good—it was a lot of work, though.”

ISDN Sessions There are times when traveling to another locale to score or rescore simply isn’t practical. At those times an ISDN session might be the answer. The music is sent ahead and a conductor hired to work with the orchestra. Once you are connected via an ISDN line to the studio in London, for example, you are able to hear the scoring session there in real time. The mix from the booth comes through very well, CD quality, and is patched into the monitoring system at the studio where you are. There is video of the session as well, with a camera on the composer, connected to a computer through the Internet, but the picture only changes every 30 seconds. Video is locked in sync at both locations. The mix is stereo, so you don’t hear the 5.1 surround sound. Music editor Daniel Allan Carlin has worked on these sessions in a studio at Capitol Records in Hollywood. In one case, “The London musicians agreed to score in the late afternoon and evenings, so we could come in at six o’clock in the morning and listen, and not have to come in at midnight or two o’clock in the morning. We did two-and-a-half days of recording. You can talk back just like you’re on the other side of the glass.” It has worked in reverse as well. Christopher Young scored The Shipping News (2001) in London with Fernandez, and used an open ISDN line to New York where the director and film editor were located. The same problems exist with this kind of setup as with a more conventional session. The first run-through can be unsettling to an untrained ear, and in the case of The Shipping News, the filmmakers were sometimes concerned about a cue before there was a chance to shape it properly. Constant reminders that this is the first rough run-through will help.

TIMING CORRECTIONS WHILE RECORDING If you are working to prerecorded and/or mapped-out click tracks, timing corrections won’t be an issue unless there has been a change in the film that you and your music editor don’t know about. But without prerecords, if you are working without an experienced music editor to take care of on-the-spot timing issues, you must know what to do when timing errors of one kind or another turn up during a session. When that

Recording

529

happens, it is pointless to spend valuable time trying to discover the reason for the mistake; just correct the error. It pays to review in advance some practical solutions to two of the most common situations. One Hit Out of Sync In a music cue with three hits that need to be absolutely accurate you are told that one is slightly off while two are dead on. Solution: Convert the size of the error (in seconds) into music notation (as on page 115) and have the orchestra move the accent to the new placement in the music. (The music editor may do this for you.) Example: Tempo: 13frame click. Meter: 4/4. Dead hits at (A) :03.25, (B) :05:70, (C) :09.75. See Figure 18.2 for the music notation of your first version. The music editor tells you that hit B should hit at :06.10 while A and C are dead on. Subtracting :05.70 from :06.10 gives a difference of :00.40 (the amount of time that B is hitting early). At this FIGURE 18.2 Timing Example.

FIGURE 18.3 Timing Example.

tempo, the musical equivalent of this amount is . The orchestra must delay the accent by that much. See Figure 18.3 for the revised version. Awkward Tempo If the original tempo doesn’t play well despite a successful mockup and adequate orchestra rehearsal, and you cannot avoid changing tempo, the best solution is to first establish a new tempo that feels better. Then, in the score, circle the crucial timings of any hits, the final resolution, and the out time for the end of the cue. Note the click (beat) number in the old tempo when the circled events happen. In the click track table for the

On the track

530

new tempo, find the timings of the circled events and note the click numbers at those timings. By comparing the click numbers of the events at the two tempos, you can see how many beats to cut or add (by repeating beats) to make the new tempo work. For example: Original tempo=113-frame click. Meter: 4/4. There are three important timings: a modulation at :08.67, a dead-hit accent at: 14:62, and the last fermata at :32:50. Figure 18.4 shows the original tempo. Note which beats (click numbers) the hits fall against. The new chosen tempo is a frame click. The changes required to make the timed hits work in the new tempo can be shown in a quickly prepared chart. Figure 18.5 shows how the hits time out in the new tempo.

POSTMIXES AND SOUND PROCESSING In practice, the turn-around time on television production allows you to do only postscoring mixes that can be done in a short period of time (and within a budget). Unless the producer wants this kind of detailed recording approach enough to budget the time and money for it, you will have to do without postmixing. Because the great majority of television music is self-performed with electronics and little else, by the time you finish your performance you will also be able to create your final mix. In this typical situation the music you deliver will be mixed and ready to dub into the film. The music editor will prepare your mixed music for dubbing on a hard disc format such as Pro Tools. In motion pictures, where the budget on medium- to large-budget films allows, a 4- to 6-day music mix after scoring is not unusual (and these are long days). A few mixers and composers prefer mixing as they record, so when they finish scoring, the music is ready for the music editor to prepare for the dubbing stage. Shawn Murphy does this when John Williams records, as does mixer Armin Steiner when working with Don Davis and others. Mixing Formats for Dubbing Most films are now dubbed in 5.1 surround sound, which has become a standard format for delivery to the scoring stage. How FIGURE 18.4 Timing Example.

Recording

531

TIMINGS CLICK CLICK DIFFERENCE SOLUTION TOTAL OF HITS NUMBERS NUMBERS BEATS AT OLD AT NEW DELETED TEMPO TEMPO :08.67

#17

#15 1/2

1 1/2 Cut one prior beat and move modulation one

1

earlier :14.62

#28

#25 1/2

2 1/2 Cut one prior beat and move

2

accent one earlier. :32.50

#61

#55 1/4

6 1/4 Cut one 4/4 bar and add poco rall. into for 1/4 beat equivalent.

6

ever, if the music is delivered in this format, the composerand music mixer will, much more often than not, send alonga number of additional tracks that are separate stereo stemsof different instrumental sections and solo instruments, plusa choir stem when voices are involved. Synths and electronicpercussion are kept separate, with split-off stems for anythingthat might need control during the dubbing. In the case ofsynths, this might include separate stems for the percussiveelements, the sustained pads, and individual colors. A totalof 16 to 24 tracks is common, with everything completelyprocessed with reverb, equalization [EQ], and effects. “Whatwe do is,” Robert Fernandez says, “we mix it the way we

On the track

532

FIGURE 18.5 Timing Example.

want to hear it. We have delay effects that go behind you,we mix all that in.” Alan Meyerson points out that there are times when the surround mix is sufficient for dubbing. “There have been shows where I’ve delivered a finished 6-track and not given them the flexibility on the stage. And not for any other reason than it’s a full orchestral thing without any synths, without any separations, and at that point you really don’t want to be putting spot mics on separate tracks. I do trust these fantastic dubbing mixers that I work with, but at the same time there has to be an integrity to the music that I don’t want to have anyone have a chance to mess with.” The 5-channel SDDS [Sony Dynamic Digital Sound] format used on some movies differs slightly from the 5.1 recording format, with two interior channels in front; left, interior left, center, interior right, and right. “As Good as It Gets (1997) was a film that we mixed for an SDDS format,” says Meyerson, “so we actually had our track splits when we delivered it to the dubbing stage setup with notes for the mixer as to which tracks we wanted on the interior speakers.” The advantage of sending some separation of the various musical elements to dubbing is that it allows much greater flexibility in mixing the music into the film with the dialogue and sound effects. “Let’s say you have percussion with a hi-hat, or something,” says music editor Bob Badami. “You end up only hearing the hi-hat when the effects are

Recording

533

in there. So if you have separate controls, like high percussion and low percussion, you can then rebalance a little bit to get really what your intention is.” Badami, like Meyerson, cautions that it is important to trust everyone involved in the dubbing of any particular project if you are sending over a lot of separate stems. Otherwise, your music may be changed significantly on the dubbing stage. Badami is conservative about this. “I think if you’re just going to give it away and you’re working with someone you don’t really know, maybe haven’t worked with before, I think you’re better not splitting it out. And then if they have a problem come back and redo it.” One significant overall concern is that the low end be loud enough to avoid having the music sound thin when the volume is turned down under dialogue. The Fletcher-Munson curves show that at lower volume levels the human ear needs more bass than at louder listening levels. Though mixers add low end on the scoring stage, this still must be adjusted in dubbing. All of the other signal processing—such as reverb, digital delay, and compression—is also diminished at softer volumes. Like his colleagues, Fernandez takes special care when mixing for dialogue sequences. “I listen with dialogue. As I’m mixing, every now and then I’ll bring the dialogue in, bring the music back a little bit to see what it’s going to sound like and see what’s poking out.” Still, at best this is only a guide track for him, because he is working with the production track, without any looped dialogue and new (and often much bigger) sound effects.

USING SAMPLES IN FINAL MIX Composers will sometimes send their mockups to dubbing, laid in alongside the scored versions. And there are times when the composer or the filmmakers will want to blend the two performances together on the dubbing stage. There is some of this in the final mix on Trevor Rabin’s score for Armageddon (1998). “I know that [producer] Jerry Bruckheimer was pushing them to use more and more of the sampled sound in the final mix,” says orchestrator Gordon Goodwin. “That was the sound that he had heard on all the previews, so he was used to hearing it and that was what he was comfortable with.” Some composers like this sound and will use a blend of these elements as they wish.

REMIXING FOR A SOUNDTRACK ALBUM A lot of times there is no need for a separate album remix. Meyerson explains: “When I’m doing these stem mixes and I’m doing these 5-channel mixes, I’m doing a stereo fold down all the time. Sometimes they sound good and sometimes I want to tweak them. Depending on the score, depending on the budget, I’ll either have the ability to go in and do some remixing or not. The adjustment is in the low end, making sure that when you combine all these different low ends in the subwoofer, that it’s still speaking properly. And do I want to use the surround tracks or don’t I want to use the surround tracks? Do I have enough reverb on the orchestra? And then, of course, if you have percussion that’s picture oriented that doesn’t make sense musically necessarily without seeing it to picture

On the track

534

you may want to adjust the balance of that. Sometimes you’ll bring it down, sometimes you might even take it out. “Traffic (2000) was an example of a movie where I decided to do separate stereo mixes. So we went back in and remixed it for the CD. With Gladiator (2000) we spent a lot of time in postproduction, using the score mixes that we had already done. But we took a tremendous amount of time creating suites of music that didn’t exist necessarily as exact cues in their original form.” Sands sometimes checks his stereo fold down after mixing a cue for the dub. He might make a few small adjustments to refine the CD stereo. Sometimes, though, like Meyerson, he’ll do a remix later. And, in a situation becoming more frequent, “In some cases we’ve done a CD mix ahead of time, if it’s a big movie and there’s pressure to get the CD out.” The recording process involves many technical details, but the film composer’s main responsibility is to create music that is well performed and recorded, and in sync with the picture both technically and dramatically. His attention should never waver from these goals. If he accomplishes this, the dubbing process will be accompanied by anticipation, not anxiety.

Recording

535

This page intentionally left blank.

On the track

536

19 DUBBING: THE FINAL MIX There are many surprises when you get to dubbing. There are cues that you were sure were going to work, until you put them together with the dialogue and sound effects. When you bring all the elements together in dubbing, things sound different. —James Goldstone, Director

WE HAVE NOW REACHED the final and most crucial point in the filmmaking process, the point at which all of the sound elements are combined into a composite sound track. For the first time all of these elements can be heard simultaneously and in sync with the picture; tough decisions must be made. The late James Goldstone explains the dubbing-stage mystique from his point of view as a director: “By that time I have seen every shot 300 times and the composer has seen the film many times, and yet it suddenly just becomes a different thing. Sometimes it’s wonderful, but sometimes it restructures the storytelling—it’s just wrong—and most often those are the times when there is a mutual decision to drop the cue. I remember very few, if any, occasions on the dubbing stage where the composer and I were in real conflict about the overall use of the cue, or the level of the cue, or something of that kind. I very much enjoy having the composer there. I think it is a very delicate balance because part of the composer is saying, ‘I want my music to be heard,’ and yet the more important part of the composer’s function on the dubbing stage is to get the overall balance correct from a musical point of view, but now he is also putting weight on the dramatic effect. Whereas when he was composing the cue and recording it, he was only thinking of his music. We all get to thinking about one element at a time at one time or another.” For composers, it can be a trial. “I don’t like to have a cue completely ruined,” says Bruce Broughton, “but I don’t mind having it altered by editing. Basically I will try and accommodate them; if I think that they’re completely wrong, I’ll tell them so, but this is a difficult area. I will write a piece of music and they will rave about it—they will love it— accept it entirely. Then we get to the dubbing stage and for whatever reason they decide to make a change in it, or they may want to play a sound effect or they may want to alter the voice, so that the music will be modified somewhat. They will ask me my opinion and I will tell them why I think the cue is working so well, only to find out that’s not the reason the music is working so well. To them it plays well for a completely different reason. “I find that my opinion means a little less than the dubbing mixers. It’s frustrating. But whatever happens to the music, I try to have it sound musical. Usually, if you have a good music editor, you don’t have to worry about that too much.

Recording

537

“I’ve found if I try to communicate my frustration and pain I’m just another crying composer. What I really try to do is to figure out just how much of a contribution I’m making and how much abuse I’m taking. Am I taking any more abuse than the writer took when he was asked to rewrite it four times? Or the actor when he thought that he had done the scene as well as he could, and was asked for one more take? “There are times when I’ve asked the people to take the music out entirely. I say, ‘If that’s the way you’re going to play it, you obviously don’t need it in the scene. Take it out.’ They say, ‘But we need it, because of such and such.’ And I say, ‘Play it at a proper level,’ or ‘Keep it in till the end,’ and very often that will do something.” Dubbing is the point where music cues can be dropped or where whole scores may be lost. Although most composers feel relatively insignificant on the dubbing stage, they often need to have some contact with the process to be able to contribute to the final mix. It should be stressed here that no composer, no matter how prestigious or how great his track record, is ever contractually granted the right of final decision as to whether his music is used in a film, or in what manner. Film contracts always grant the producer the right to replace a score, interpolate any other composer’s work, add lyrics without permission, and in general use or not use the score in any way he sees fit. A positive attitude is a must. As music editor Daniel Allan Carlin says, “Any number of composers could do a show and they’d all do a fine job. They’d just be a little different stylistically. But what they’ll remember is if you’re a pain in the ass.”

THE COMPOSER ON THE DUBBING STAGE I can’t believe that more composers don’t come to the dubbing stage. My experience remains that if the composer is on the stage the music gets played louder. —Daniel Allan Carlin, Music Editor

I never sit on the dubbing stage. I think that’s no place for a composer. —Mark Mancina

Do they seem welcome?—For a short bit. It’s a sound effects world. —Robert Fernandez, Recording Engineer

Most common would be that the composer drops in on the stage maybe once or twice during a final mix and then is invited for a final playback. —Rick Kline, Music Rerecording Mixer

On the track

538

What you don’t want to do is lose track of the dub. —Howard Shore

Very few composers will go to dubbing every day, all day long, a process that takes weeks on a motion picture. Your music editor will be working with the filmmakers and the mixing crew to make any requested changes, and should be in touch with you daily. Most typically, a composer will get calls from the dubbing stage with questions or requests for changes, and will go in to hear playbacks of completed reels. There may be times when you don’t go at all. “I’ve had cases where I’m not invited to the dub,” Edward Shearmur says, “where the music is being chopped around and reedited. There are some directors who absolutely feel the need to tear somebody else’s work apart. In those situations you just raise your hand and say, ‘Off you go, but count me out.’” At such times, Shearmur relies on his longtime music editor, Daryl Kell. “He’ll let me know what’s going on and will obviously be as much of an advocate for the score as he can be. But there are battles that you win and there are battles that you lose.” Howard Shore keeps in touch on a daily basis via the Internet. “I’ll have them post the mix on an FTP [File Transfer Protocol] and then I have a surround room here and we download it and we can listen to it exactly the way they’re seeing and hearing it wherever they are. We do it in London, we do it in New Zealand, we do it in L.A., Toronto, that’s how we are able to keep track of the mix.” He doesn’t give them many notes; his big concern is that everything is technically proper. “I want to make sure that it’s the right piece going in and that it’s in the right place. I mean, that to me is 90 percent of it. And then, did everything that we edited so meticulously now go into the mix beautifully? That’s the next level of concern.” Finally, he points out, there’s the actual mix itself, which is in the director’s realm. He’ll send short e-mail notes to the dubbing stage about any small mixing suggestions he might have, “Like see where he’s going with it and then say, ‘You know, if you raise this 3 dB in this spot it’s going to make this moment so beautiful.’” “And then, once it’s finished, then I always show up. I always go for the end, allowing a few days, ‘cause you want to have a meeting with the filmmakers. It’s the last time that anybody’s going to see the movie before it’s released. So we all want to sit down and look at the finished film with all the correct sound and the music and everything and just watch it and then we usually have a couple of days where we touch it up all together.” Almost all directors, producers, and music executives agree that the composer can be a valuable participant in the dubbing process, however that is done. If the composer can take the larger perspective of the whole film, he should generally feel welcome.

THE DUBBING STAGE AND THE PARTICIPANTS The dubbing stage is a projection room set up like a small theater. Projection used to be exclusively 35mm film, but at this point video projection is more commonly used. The mixing itself takes place at a long mixing console at the rear of the room, where the music, effects, and dialogue mixers are each sitting before their respective sections of the

Recording

539

board. Although three mixers is traditional, more than 50 percent of the dubs are now done with just two mixers (the dialogue and music being done by the same person); occasionally there are as many as four. Rick Kline prefers the three-person crews. “For me it’s kind of like playing in a jazz ensemble where you’re contributing your part and the other guy’s listening and he’s improvising and there’s a lot of unspoken language.” Each has charts, called dubbing logs, giving the film footage of the entrances and exits of all of the sounds for which they are responsible. On these logs, they might make additional notes about fader levels, equalization settings, special signal-processing effects, and any other audio elements with which they should interact. Usually, though, they are pretty straightforward, with indications of when each track starts and stops, and how tracks are assigned (see Figure 19.1). At the front of this room, a prominent footage counter is displayed beneath the large movie screen so that each mixer can add the sounds he is responsible for at exact footages while watching the screen. The central figure in this group is the director or producer. Others, besides the film, sound-effects, and music editors, might be the music supervisor (occasionally), the composer, or the sound designer. The music and sound-effects editors will be nearby, ready to move, drop, add, or replace elements of their tracks. The film editor will not only be there but is likely to have an important role by virtue of his intimate knowledge of the picture and his close working relationship with the director. There are times, in fact, when the film editor may supervise the dubbing session for periods of time.

PREPARING THE MUSIC FOR DUBBING After the scoring sessions, the music editor will prepare the music for dubbing, using some sort of hard disc format such as Pro Tools. He will line up all cues so they are perfectly in sync with the film according to the composer’s intentions. Any crossfades from one piece of music to another will be made at this time so that each reel of film can be dubbed straight through in its entirety. There may be very little time for the music editor to do this work after scoring ends. On Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002), Ken Wannberg had two weeks to prepare for dubbing, but typically the music is needed on the dubbing stage the day after the scoring sessions finish. In those cases, the music editor will finish the first reel and then as they are dubbing Reel 1 he can be preparing Reel 2. This tight scheduling does create problems, though. “In the old days,” Carlin says, “we were given time to edit the score together prior to dubbing. After the mix, the music editor would have three or four or five days to edit it and make any adjustments. Not like, ‘Oh, how can I improve on what the composer was doing?’ but, ‘The composer wanted this downbeat to hit right here on this cut and we missed it when we recorded, it’s off just a few frames. Pro Tools allows me to hold beat four a little bit longer and lay this down.’ Sometimes I have to lay it in the way it is and hope that on the dubbing stage I can sneak in some time. And I catch most of those things, but the time to finesse is lost.” FIGURE 19.1 Dubbing Stage Log for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Prepared

On the track

540

by Jim Harrison, Segue Music.

PREDUBBING Before the final dubbing sessions on feature films, several days to several weeks will be allotted for the predubbing of dialogue and effects. During the predubbing, the dubbing

Recording

541

mixers premix as many as 30 or 40 tracks down to perhaps 18 or so to make the final mix manageable. The sound effects people may create anywhere from 60 to several hundred tracks, which will all be predubbed down to somewhere between six and twelve different 8-track units. During these rehearsals and predubs, the mixers become well-acquainted with the material. As music editor on Pearl Harbor (2001), Bob Badami observed the positive effect of the predubbing process. “All of the battle stuff was planned very carefully before it got here. So there was a whole design phase before dubbing. Then they did a lot more at dubbing to enhance it, but it was very carefully planned. Normally, it all comes together in a big train wreck, and then it gets sorted out. And I think the fact that that movie sounds remarkably good is due to that preplanning aspect.” Most music predubbing occurs on films that are song oriented. Almost Famous (2000), the story of a young teenage boy in the seventies who goes on the road with a band to write about rock and roll for Rolling Stone, was loaded with songs. Rerecording mixer Rick Kline predubbed the concert performances, which were spread out over 24 to 32 tracks. Sometimes if the specific treatment of various tracks is different for a number of elements, predubbing is required (different reverb, EQ, or other processing effects, for instance); Kline did some predubbing of the music on Vanilla Sky (2001) for this reason. Smaller-budget, tight-schedule projects may allow no opportunity to predub or to hear the tracks ahead of time, in which case everyone has to start out cold at dubbing. Television episodes are done this way. The dialogue mixer will usually first listen to his tracks alone, and the sound-effects mixer his tracks, but the music mixer does not always get time to run the music alone.

THE MUSIC MIXER We have seen that music mixers like to be as well informed and prepared as possible when they get to the dubbing stage. When they are able to mix the temp dub, then they will know the film very well by the time the final dub begins. And if the composer has provided a lot of his new original score for the temp as the process moves along, then the mixer will also have had a chance to become familiar with the score prior to dubbing. If the music mixer has not been through the temp dub, then unfamiliarity with the project can be an issue. Robert Fernandez says, “It’s the time factor. It’s that these guys have been working on their predubs for months or weeks, and when you show up to do the music, it’s immediately, ‘Let’s go for a take.’ And it’s like, ‘Wait a minute. Why don’t we listen to this music against the sound effects and the dialogue? Let’s balance it, let’s view it, let’s make sure it’s right. I mean, the mix is right. But you’re in another environment, you need to play it against everything that’s on the screen.”

DUBBING STAGE SOUND The monitor level on the dubbing stage is extremely loud these days. I wear earplugs on playbacks, as most guys do. —Robert Fernandez, Music Rerecording Mixer

On the track

542

You might be surprised at how loud the monitoring levelsare on the dubbing stage. They seem fairly loud in the boothplaybacks during scoring, but with bigger-than-life explosionsand other huge sound-effects, there is no comparison. “I wasdubbing a film,” Fernandez recalls, “and the sound effects editorturned to me and he said, ‘I don’t know how you guys do it/And I said, ‘Do what?’ ‘You music guys monitor so loud all thetime.’ And I looked at him and I said, ‘You’ve got to be crazy.There’s no way I would ever monitor this loud—I’d have beenout of business ten years ago, buddy. I never monitor this loud.’I set the console level at a fixed 85 dB. Granted that’ll shift alittle bit up or down, but boy! I think it’s just the ‘wow’ factorfor the producers and directors. On a dubbing stage you aremixing for a big theater.” Dubbing Formats The 5.1 surround sound spread for music is basically left, center, and right. As Kline describes it, “On a scale of 100 percent it would be 100 left and right on a peak scale, 80 in the middle and maybe 40 in the rear, maybe 20 into the subwoofer. That’s a sort of scalular breakdown. If you looked at it on meters that’s how it would be. Imaging-wise you’ll get what you hear on the scoring stage as far as the orchestral spread, pretty much all the way across the image.” At the end of dubbing, there will be a music master, a dialogue master, and an effects master, each in 5.1 format. From there it goes to the print master process. Kline explains: “That’s the two-day process where it goes into the different formats, Dolby Digital format, the DTS format, and the SDDS format. Those three can be made simultaneously, and although they have slightly different sonic characteristics they’re so subtle it’s almost a nonissue. And the Dolby 2-track, which is the analog 2-track. When it’s presented in a theater in a 4-track format we actually make a matrixed encoded copy that gets matrixdecoded in the theater back to 4 channels. That’s the Dolby SR. The 2-track was the first Dolby before the 5.1. THX theaters are all equipped for the 5.1 format. Others still may be the Dolby SR 2-track.”

FIRST ADJUSTMENTS DURING THE MIX At dubbing, each reel (typically an approximately 2,000-foot combination of two 1,000foot reels) is worked on individually, starting with rehearsals to audition the cumulative effect of all the tracks running simultaneously. These rehearsals will probably be a stopand-go process, as the dialogue and sound-effects mixers stop the film frequently and back up to work on their tracks. The first adjustments each mixer makes are to set levels, equalization, and reverb to make the blend and balance as smooth as possible. Reverb is available as needed, and limiters and compressors are often required to cut down the large differences between the loudest and softest sounds, particularly in dialogue and singing. The music mixer will make additional notes on his log to remind him of any

Recording

543

potential problems with dialogue. Rerecording mixer Don MacDougall (who has mixed both music and dialogue) feels that it is important that “the music mixer have the opportunity to listen to the music isolated without any other kind of extraneous background, dialogue, or effects, so that he can hear the elements of the music. That way he can best judge how the sonorities or complexities of the music work against all the other elements. Presuming that I have predubbed the dia-logue, I like to run the dialogue and the music alone, without effects, so the music mixer can hear where people are speaking, to make the scene take hold. “Then after that run I’ll give the music mixer a run all by himself. The effects mixer has an opportunity to do that; the dialogue mixer has the opportunity. Why not the music mixer? If the filmmakers have an opportunity to see the reel with music in a good environment (other than just a playback on the scoring stage), I think they are more likely to understand what the music is doing for the scene.” At this point all conflicts between music and dialogue and between music and effects will have to be resolved. The music editor might be asked to move a cue slightly earlier (“advance” the music) or later (“ritard” the music) to keep from stepping on dialogue lines or sound effects. This can work, but the composer and music editor should be cautious, because it may cause the entire cue to be out of sync and miss many of the dramatic elements it originally played. The aware music editor may be able to make further adjustments if necessary using hard disk technology to smooth out these problems. Although conflicts with dialogue would seem to be the hardest to resolve, because the words must be heard to carry the story line, the more persistent problems involve conflicts between music and effects, each of which require space in which to be heard, with each tending to cancel the other’s effectiveness. Very often the most satisfactory solution is to drop one or the other to a secondary role or to drop the music completely. “That’s a very touchy subject with me, sound-effects,” music editor Ken Wannberg admits. “I’ve worked with all the great sound-effects guys and they do a good job, they really do, but they have so much to say in dubbing. And a lot of times the guy who does the sound effects is mixing. And that’s bad. I mean, how can you be objective? A lot of things have bothered me, and I fight all the time. I win a lot of the times, but I don’t some of the times, too. Like room tones and sounds that have a tone that rubs against a cue a minor second, it makes it sound like John [Williams] wrote a bad chord.”

OVERALL MUSIC LEVELS Most of the time I feel like they mix music too loud. And I would rather have it on the softer side than on the louder side. —Mark Mancina

To contribute anything, music must be dubbed at a certain minimum level, where all musical elements can be heard distinctly (albeit softly). However, this will only guarantee a minimal contribution in most cases. Usually, music should be playing louder than this

On the track

544

minimum level in order to bring as much value as possible to the film. This is an area about which filmmakers are frequently unsure, and often err by being unnecessarily conservative. “The dialogue really stands out in the theater more than it does on the dubbing stage,” says dialogue rerecording mixer John Reitz. “It’s amazing what you can learn in theaters with full houses. The music just goes away.” His music-mixing colleague David Campbell agrees. “Even the reverb that you mix in is really at quite a low level. And the music can just disappear with the popcorn noise.” “The dialogue,” adds Reitz, “never seems to be crowded too much by music. The lines always cut through.” After Avalon (1990) was dubbed, director Barry Levinson previewed it. “What happened was, he heard it in the theater,” says Randy Newman, “and it was too loud there so he took it down. You know, people tell me, ‘I loved your score for Avalon,’ and I say, “Well, how can you hear it?’ I mean, it’s down so far.” After the film was released, Levinson realized he had overcompensated during the final dubbing sessions based upon what he heard during the film’s preview. The final result? “It was way too soft,” says Newman. “And he knows it.” Although Mark Mancina doesn’t want to hear the music mixed too loud, there are plenty of times when it is mixed too soft to make its best contribution to the scene. Mancina cites a moment in Training Day (2001) that would have benefited from more level. “I thought it was mixed a little low. I wrote it to work with the dialogue and not get in the way, it was really carved and it was sculpted correctly and when I went to the dubbing stage, Antoine [Fuqua, director] asked me to come and hear it, and I said, ‘I think you’re losing a little bit of the emotion in a couple of places.’ One of the places I still feel was really low was when Jake [Ethan Hawke] gets stoned in the car and he’s driving around. I felt that the music mix there really is a little bit too understated.” Composers generally agree with the subtext of these statements by Mancina; they don’t want the music to be too loud, but then again, they don’t want it too soft either. And this makes sense. The music has to be at the best possible level for the scene and, in an overall sense, for the film, to be most contributive. However, as Carlin says, “Directors get nervous.” There are a variety of reasons for this. Interestingly, one reason is if the director is looking to establish a sense of “reality.” That was the situation on Training Day, according to Mancina. “His fear was that he didn’t want to make that movie a Hollywood-sounding movie. And the score isn’t that by any means, but I think that any time the score got a little powerful, he pulled it back because he wanted to keep this reality going.” Mancina is particularly pleased with the director’s choices during the scene at the end of the film, in which Alonzo (Denzel Washington), surrounded by people in his neighborhood, urges them to support him. “That piece of music, to me, is really powerful. And it really worked and he played it fairly loud so you could hear it, and I do think that that made Denzel’s performance even stronger than it already was without any music, and believe me it was strong without any music.” As already mentioned, the sound effects are another big reason that music sometimes suffers. The sound effects creators and mixers “have the leverage, for some reason,” says Wannberg. For his taste, the effects get much too loud. “It’s the director. He’s seen the film a billion times and he’s nervous so he thinks sound is going to do something for it. That’s not good.” He mentions Steven Spielberg as a director who truly understands the

Recording

545

relationship between the various sound elements. “He loves music, he can hum almost any Main Title ever written, which is phenomenal. He’ll start peeling the effects away. You have to wait your time, you know, you have to let them do their thing and let it all be out there and then slowly chip away at it. A lot of finessing goes on. I mean, you can get really angry and scream and that doesn’t do any good.”

CHANGING/LOSING CUES For the most part, I’ve seen a lot of real cooperative effort. —Rick Kline, Music Rerecording Mixer

When the director feels the music is not working—that is, it is stepping on lines, muddying things up, making too busy a texture, misguiding the audience’s emotions, or in any other way disrupting or not supporting his vision—the cue may be dropped or replaced with another cue originally scored for another scene. Directors and producers often want the composer’s input at these times, either in person on the stage or on the phone. Creativity is still required. Maybe an added instrument or rhythmic effect will provide a missing element, maybe a change of emphasis, maybe moving the music slightly earlier or later, maybe more reverb, or in many instances, maybe a different approach to the scene. “Ed Shearmur was in New York while we were mixing K-PAX [2001],” Kline recalls, “and the director had conversations with him over the phone to reshape some cues. It was a very eclectic score. And so he changed some orchestration, he changed some synth parts, and came in with several options. He was in probably for a total of a day, but he came in for several hours three or four times and just presented new options and cues. It was delivered on a drive, and we’d load the drive into the Pro Tools.” With all the flexibility directors are being offered now that there are many separate tracks delivered by the composers and their mixers, it is not surprising that sometimes directors reshape music on the dubbing stage. This is not a new procedure though, just one that is easier to facilitate now that digital technology can accommodate it. When he did the score for Altered States (1980), John Corigliano found that “it was a little easier [working] with [director] Ken Russell because he likes and respects composers. But I left the dubbing stage when I entered to hear my stark solo oboes for the first hallucination being overdubbed with gongs right and left and seagull sounds. I got on a plane and went back to New York. The people on the dubbing stages can’t understand the possibilities that the composer can envision. We could be of real help to them if they’d let us.” When considering changes that may be made on the dubbing stage, it is helpful to realize that the group effort is to contribute to making the best film possible. While dubbing a film he had scored, Craig Safan once heard the head mixer say, “If the music wasn’t so damned loud you could hear the dialogue.” Safan says, “The comment had nothing to do with the music—only the level of the music. It was not a critique of the music.” Safan’s observation is enlightening. Don’t take any comments that come out of the dubbing stage personally, everything has to do with the function of your music in the

On the track

546

film, primarily as seen from the director’s perspective.

AS THE DIRECTOR SEES IT The experience of running the film with all tracks playing is an all-important one to the director, who must then decide what to use and what to change. After months of planning, this is his first chance to see and hear all of the combined film elements and his last chance to make changes. About the musical choices, director John Erman says, “Sometimes I will love a cue so much that I will tend to sacrifice the other effects. And then I have to say to myself, ‘Wait a minute—don’t the footsteps mean anything here?’ And sometimes the composer won’t have left air or space for those footsteps, so when you get on the dubbing stage you may have to bring him down or bring the effects up. The dialogue is more important in certain scenes, but sometimes if you just catch part of the dialogue it’s enough because the emotional life of the scene may be illustrated better by the music than by the words. Other times there’s a plot that has to be gotten across. And as great as the cue may be, if you don’t hear that plot you’re not going to get through emotionally to the audience. “We had a cue at the end of Early Frost [1985 television movie] that was a beautiful and very dramatic cue. And when I got on the dubbing stage with the producer, who was very creative and who also had a real musical background, we said, ‘We don’t need any music at all.’ Because at the end of that movie the boy was leaving his parents—they knew and he knew he was going to die. They were saying good-bye and the taxi just disappears in the darkness. We wanted a kind of hopeless, ominous quality that seemed to work better without any music at all. We took the music out and put in some sound effects of a storm brewing—thunder and lightning—and for some reason it had an eloquence that was better. Somehow the elements of nature were the right thing.”

DUBBING STAGE PROTOCOL In order for the composer to have some practical effect it is necessary to take into account the protocol, the chain of command that governs this complex of artists and technicians on the dubbing stage. For example, when faced with the perennial problem of music being masked by a droning sound effect (a helicopter for instance) that continues at a loud level for no obvious purpose, Charles Bernstein believes it isn’t proper protocol for him to ask the effects mixer to lower the effect. Instead, Bernstein says, “I’ll point it out to the director and he’ll transmit it. There is a chain of command in the dubbing theater and I try not to violate that. I won’t speak to the mixer directly unless I have permission from the director. Sometimes the director will say, ‘Charles, feel free to sit with the music mixer and if there is anything you want to discuss with him that will improve the music by all means do it.’” In general, the composer should feel comfortable speaking directly to the music mixer, with the following caveat: “The music is there to help the film,” as Carlin reminds us, “and so you cannot lose sight of that when you’re on the dubbing stage dealing with the

Recording

547

director. Some composers have that problem. Of course, they don’t last.” The Film Editor’s Role Sometimes the film editor will intervene to keep an overreaction by one of the filmmakers from spoiling what could be a good sequence. Editor John Martinelli always sits in on dubbing all the way if he can, “because the editor knows all facets—if something is missing I know it and I can say, “Guys, it’s missing.” They never knew it was there so they don’t worry about it and it’s gone. “Sometimes they won’t give the music a fair shot. The music mixer plays a cue too loud at a rehearsal and immediately a producer or somebody says, ‘That’s no good, just dump the music.’ Many times I’ll say, ‘Wait a minute, don’t just dump it right now; let’s go back, give it a fair shot, the way it was scored to work, with the right level, and then, if worst comes to worst, we can take it out. We can come in a couple of bars later, we can go out a couple of bars earlier, we can do whatever we want to do.’ And it’s amazing— probably 50 percent of the time it will then stay in. “People overreact and that’s wrong. And the composer, when he’s there, can say, ‘You guys may be right, but may I try this’ and they will say, ‘Of course. Try it.’ And many times it will work. If it isn’t going to work, then everybody knows it, including the composer.” The music editor can also make these suggestions if the composer is not present. Communication Skills Don MacDougall, now retired, liked input from the composer, “probably more than most mixers do—I have a great affinity for those guys. A lot of times composers get bent out of shape for no other reason than that something goes wrong, it doesn’t sound right—the producer has a different opinion about something and they’re at odds with each other. I think the ability to sit down and communicate with anybody on a dubbing stage is very important. I also believe that the composer should speak to the music mixer on a one-toone basis—a friendly ‘Hello, how are you? Tell me what you have in mind’ sort of thing.” Kline agrees. “I love opinions, I love creative input, I love interaction with directors. At this point you think there’s definitely a common goal and syncronicity, and I don’t think there’s any inappropriateness. There are times when the director will like the music and will say, ‘Please come by and hear this.’ And the composer would go to the director and say, ‘Well, I think this, and this and this,’ and the director would say, ‘Talk to Rick.’ You know, ‘Do it and then play it back for me. When you’re happy, I’ll be happy.’ That’s easy. That’s what we do.”

DUBBING WITH DIALOGUE Underscoring dialogue is tricky. The fullness and beauty of the music is lost when the music must be turned down to keep it from interfering with the words. It is not only the

On the track

548

composer who feels the loss. Director Richard Michaels finds it very disappointing “to hear a wonderful score on the scoring stage be pushed way down in the background—and I’m remembering what it sounded like when it was full.” Some musical textures and colors don’t compete with dialogue, while others do. When they don’t, a full musical sound can be a satisfying and emotional underpinning to the scene. The composer can be most contributive if he really listens objectively to the dialogue when there is underscoring, in order to determine if the music is supportive or disruptive. This can and should be studied well in advance of dubbing, at the time when the composer is composing and creating mockups. Mixing your music onto a separate video track in sync with the dialogue, or dubbing your work video onto another video with your music mixed under dialogue, will help you achieve the insight you need to make the best possible choices in these situations. (See page 168 for more about underscoring dialogue.) Hear It Softly for Television Music rerecording mixer David Campbell recommends that the composer “should try listening to his music at a low level and on a small speaker when preparing music with dialogue for television. See what goes away against the noise of the production track.” John Reitz agrees. “Judging from what we get, I don’t think composers listen to dialogue. A lot of people don’t write around the dialogue anymore.” “When we have to pull music down around dialogue,” Campbell continues, “quite often we’ll boost low and high end, just to compensate for the volume loss—the FletcherMunson curve. And that helps. Keeping a rhythm track going helps—keeping it audible.” Playing back softly or on small speakers prior to dubbing will give the composer a much better sense of how his music will ultimately sound on the dubbing stage. Reitz explains: “On a smaller speaker, the dialogue will punch right out, and the music and everything else seems to drop way back. We try to prove to the filmmakers that, on a smaller speaker, the dialogue is going to be there. Even though it sounds like it’s covered up here, in the theater it really isn’t”

LOSING A SCORE I’m still waiting for the study that shows me that throwing out the score and replacing it has saved any movie. —Daniel Allan Carlin, Music Editor

“Losing a score” is a phrase that has an ominous ring for every composer. Nobody can be dispassionate about having a score thrown out, yet “there are very few people in this town—eminent people—who haven’t had scores thrown out,” the late John Addison said. Losing a score was just as painful for Addison, who was an eminent composer himself, as it is for every composer. “I’d never had the experience of having a score thrown out until recently. I joined the club. In this case it happened that I was writing very much for the

Recording

549

producer, who was the one in control, and everybody was absolutely thrilled at the recording. They did the dubbing, which I wasn’t able to go to, and they had a screening for the network person, who hated the score. I’m told that everybody else in the room promptly agreed with network—because they wanted to be employed by that network. And that’s an added factor which I’d never realized—you can please the people you are working for, but then somebody at the network says they don’t like it.” Addison had no opportunity to discuss his score with the network executive, so rapport and understanding were impossible. Further, at that time sophisticated mockups didn’t exist. But with the current potential to create high-quality mockups prior to scoring and dubbing, it’s difficult to understand how anything could go wrong after a director has heard a replication of the entire score, made his suggestions, heard the composer’s adjustments, and signed off on his work. Yet it does still happen. When it does, the filmmaker’s decision almost always is to drop the score and hire a new composer to create an entirely new one. The original composer gets his fee and goes on to his next assignment and the new composer gets perhaps a few weeks to complete his score.

DUBBING SCHEDULES The length of time scheduled to dub a film or television project depends on the budget of the film, and in certain cases, the bargaining strength of the filmmaker. The typical range of duration is five or six weeks (Star Wars II: The Attack of the Clones), including predubbing, which can take two or three weeks. Mi-nority Report (2002) was three weeks after predubbing; smaller films such as Fly Away Home might be only two weeks after predubbing. The three weeks might be 10 days of dubbing, then a preview, a few days for changes, and a few days for print mastering. Television episodes are dubbed in a day as a rule, maybe two days if they are extremely complicated; two-hour movies for television in two or three days. “I like to tell a producer, ‘I’ll go as fast as you want to go,’ MacDougall says. “But everybody wants to make certain that every integral part of a film is perfect. So they want you to do a wonderful job and then they defy you to do it. I’ve been asked to dub a two hour movie-of-the-week in two days. We can do it, but obviously there are elements and areas of the mix that suffer because of the lack of time to prepare things properly and do a super job.”

PREVIEWS The only remaining step in the scoring process is to make any alterations that might occur after a feature film has gone out to preview. Sneak previews are scheduled to test audience reactions before sending multimillion-dollar projects out for distribution. Such previews are done with the dubbed sound on a hard disc format so the picture can be shown without having to make composite prints with picture and sound combined on an optical soundtrack. There will usually be revisions, and any picture revisions may affect

On the track

550

the music. In such cases the music editor, with suggestions from the composer (if he is available), can usually recut the music to fit the changes. But sometimes audience reaction at previews may prompt major changes, or even a new score. For purposes of clarity and focus we have not yet discussed variations of the filmcomposing sequence. However, be aware of the many combinations of factors possible, and as always, be flexible. We now turn our attention to the use of electronics and contemporary music, songs and song scores, musicals, and business matters.

SCORES FOR STUDY The reader is urged to study on DVD or videocassette the illustrations cited in this chapter, some of which are listed below, as well as these further examples of the principles discussed. All timings cited are those on the DVD when released on that medium. The first number indicates the lapsed time in hours, the second the minutes, and the third, seconds. Avalon (1990, Randy Newman). Play this DVD at a good level and study the relationship of the dubbed music to the dialogue and sound effects. Notice how the music feels emotionally when it gets too soft, and judge whether the music level increases in those moments when it continues after the end of dialogue. And compare the relative volume levels of those sequences that are dubbed with little or no sound effects or dialogue, as montage sequences. Training Day (2001, Mark Mancina). Again, play this DVD at relatively the same level as Avalon. There is more dynamic range in this soundtrack, but it is instructive to begin by balancing the relative overall levels of these two films before beginning your study. Mancina specifically mentions two scenes: when Jake [Ethan Hawke] gets stoned in the car and he’s driving around (00:18:00 is overhead shot of the freeway), which he feels is too soft; and the scene at the end of the film, when Alonzo (Denzel Washington) is surrounded by people in his neighborhood (01:50:13), which Mancina feels is dubbed louder to take advantage of the emotional support his score gives the scene. George Lucas illustrated the potential for great clarity and discretion in his use of sound on Star Wars (1977, John Williams). Select several sound effects-heavy action films, such as Armageddon (1998, Trevor Rabin), Black Hawk Down (2001, Hans Zimmer), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, John Williams); The Scorpion King (2002, John Debney), Speed (1994, Mark Mancina); Twister (1996, Mark Mancina); and xXx (2002, Randy Edelman plus songs). Study a classic Western or two, such as The Magnificent Seven (1960), and a more recent Western such as Silverado (1985, Bruce Broughton). Dubbing with Dialogue Notice the effective levels for underscoring various dialogue scenes as you view films. Again, this is best done by establishing an audible frame of reference on your equipment, so that the films you view are related to each other in terms of soundtrack levels. This is a subjective judgment; the goal being not to play a very loud soundtrack too loud, or a

Recording

551

quiet soundtrack too softly. Consider that some films have been dubbed louder overall, particularly contemporary action films, and that a quieter, more character-driven film will not be dubbed as intensely.

On the track

552

VI ELECTRONIC AND CONTEMPORARY SCORING

Electronic

553

This page intentionally left blank.

On the track

554

20 USING ELECTRONIC MUSIC In the seventies, I used to get two phone calls about the Arp 2600. First: “I can’t get it to start.” Followed not too much later by, “I can’t get it to stop.” —Clark Spangler, Synthesist

The technique is unimportant compared to what you do with it. —William Goldstein

There’s nothing that can replace the human soul in a score. —Hans Zimmer

UNTIL THE MID-SEVENTIES, the phrase “electronic music” most often referred to music that was difficult to create and could be difficult to listen to. As far back as the early sixties there were frequent examples of scores utilizing some electronic instruments along with a basically acoustic orchestra. During the seventies, the combination of acoustic and electronics became and more prevalent in television and film scores. Now and then a totally electronic score would surface, taking advantage of the unique potential of electronically created sound (for example Gil Mellé’s 1971 score for The Andromeda Strain). With occasional exceptions, most of the all-electronic music used in film and television scores up until the early eighties was rhythm-section-oriented contemporary music, often with sequencer-generated patterns like those used in Tangerine Dream’s score for Thief (1981). Yet the development of more and more sophisticated equipment and technology has made it possible to score films using a variety of other approaches. Giorgio Moroder’s all-electronic scores for Cat People (1982) and Scarface (1983) are rarely “pop” or record-oriented (the title song for Cat People is well integrated instrumentally into the score); they utilize traditional scoring techniques and values performed on electronic instruments. Even earlier, Moroder’s score for Midnight Express (1978) represented a landmark use of electronic music in a film about a drug smuggler captured in Turkey. Mark Isham’s score for Never Cry Wolf (1983) uses electronic sounds reflective of the landscapes of the Arctic’s far northland and empathetic to the story of a man studying the behavior of a pack of wolves. As historical perspective, in 1985 music mixer Don MacDou-gall said, “Most of the work I do for the last five years has been electronic music.” As is so often the case, things

Electronic

555

change, and in motion pictures the emphasis on electronics has shifted to a more wide open and receptive attitude from both filmmakers and composers. Economics and budget considerations may cer tainly influence the instrumentation used on a score (as is so often the case in television), but not the creative vision. The composer now has the choice of approaching a score utilizing electronics as “classical” music (like chamber music or symphonic music), or “contemporary” music (using all or a portion of a rhythm section, most often mixed with electronics), or any balance of these two concepts, and then blending his electronic elements to any desired degree with acoustic instruments or orchestra. To be able to move freely among these options, the composer needs a solid understanding of electronic techniques and orchestral music. While an examination of the varied techniques, hardware, and software utilized in contemporary electronic music composition and production are beyond the scope of this book (and are available in other books and monthly music journals), it is very important to be aware of and understand the application of electronic music in films. Electronic music can be used in film scoring in several ways: 1. As an imitation or re-creation of acoustic instruments. 2. As a means of creating unique non-acoustic sounds. 3. As a blend of electronic and acoustic or pseudo-acoustic sounds. Each one of these electronic approaches can be used to create an independent palette of sounds, or an electronic ensemble of sounds to be incorporated in an acoustic orchestral texture.

ELECTRONIC INSTRUMENTS AS ACOUSTIC RE-CREATIONS The most widespread uses of electronics to recreate acoustic ensembles is in the creation of mockups, and in self-performed scores for television and smaller-budgeted independent films. To hear a remarkably effective orchestral mockup, listen to Hans Zimmer’s original demo of “The Gladiator Waltz,” Track 12 on the Decca Records CD More Music from the Motion Picture Gladiator. As Zimmer describes it in his liner notes, “This is the piece that [editor] Pietro Scalia and Ridley Scott cut most of the action scenes to. This really helped me in the long run, because not only could Ridley hear how it was working before the orchestra performed it, but it meant we could make all the changes over a long period of time and let the film and music develop together.” (See Chapter 7 for more on mockups.) Samplers and samples are also used frequently to capture the sound of acoustic instruments, voices, and even nonmusicderived sounds including sound effects of all sorts that are considered as musical instruments, subsequently manipulated, and orchestrated into the score. Many times sampling is employed for practical reasons. For instance, it is much easier to control the performance of an unusual instrument once it has been properly sampled than to bring in an authentic performer on an esoteric instrument that would be more difficult to tune and to integrate with a rhythm section or orchestra. There are times when it is simply impossible to replicate these sampled sounds with acoustic instruments. Hans Zimmer had this challenge when he scored a particular cue for

On the track

556

The Thin Red Line (1998). “One of the things [director] Terry [Malick] really wanted was that everything was organic; no synthesizers and no samples. When I wrote that piece I wrote it on samples, which are just 2 sticks at the side of a tom-tom. Then I spent literally weeks, with the Teiko drummers and the orchestral drummers, to try and re-create the sound; in the movie it’s the samples!” In fact, prerecorded percussion is usually retained. Not only is the specific sound irreplaceable, but also the performance. “On Speed 2 [1997],” says orchestrator Gordon Goodwin, “we had Emil Richards and Al Acuna and all those great guys back there playing all these different African drums and a lot of ethnic percussion. The impression I have is that we really never got it to the level that the samples were. Because composers spend a lot of time getting the nuance in the groove when they’re programming. So when you’ve got four of the best percussionists in town but they’re in the back of this big scoring stage with all that natural ambience it just didn’t sound the same.” Graeme Revell works with percussion a lot and will sometimes start with a live performance, but he finds that the performance must be electronically shaped and polished. “I get four or five people in a room with percussion and I work out the tracks or the loops that I need and then we come back and process them a lot through plug-ins. If you use that number of percussionists, though, it can sound like four guys in a restaurant. So there’s a lot of work going into making it sound tribal and as if there were 40 people playing.” The score for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) illustrates this approach.

ELECTRONIC INSTRUMENTS FOR UNIQUE SOUNDS The earliest use of electronics in film scoring was for the purpose of creating unique electronic sounds that could not be produced by acoustic instruments. Elmer Bernstein used electronics in his score for Robot Monster as far back as 1953. When director Robert Wise was in the process of editing The Andromeda Strain, a 1971 science fiction film about a group of scientists working against a time limit to neutralize a deadly virus, he knew that the score was going to be very important. Sound effects were light and there was a lot of suspense throughout the film. He decided on an electronic score, and worked with composer Gil Mellé. “I told him what I was after,” Wise says. “I needed to have a musical score but it needed to sound as mechanical as possible. I said I didn’t want any of his electronic stuff to sound like a note, a sustained musical note. And several times, although his cues were very good, there would be some musical notes, something that would sound like a violin or some instrument and I’d say, ‘Gil, that’s fine except that part is not right because it sounds identifiably like a piece of music.’ And he would take it back that night and fix it.” Westworld (1973, Karlin) has a long electronic cue for the robot repair sequence that could not have been replicated by an acoustic orchestra. Assigning the music to a string section would have been simple, but not nearly as effective. Getting the strings to sound exactly as the electronics did would have been impossible. This cue begins at 00:26:23 as the camera pans across James Brolin and Richard Benjamin sleeping. Manipulating Acoustic Sounds with Electronics

Electronic

557

You can use electronic methods and technology to change acoustically generated sounds into fresh instrumental colors that suit a particular dramatic situation. The “Municipal Band” in Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace (1999) is primarily synthesizer generated, except for live brass. Ken Wannberg describes how John Williams got his effective brass sound: “Some of the brass stuff we did at half tempo and sped it up, so it got an octave higher, which trumpets can’t do.” Howard Shore recorded his handwritten score for Crash (1996) “and then I would manipulate those recordings, sometimes with the original recordings, so I would create electronic pieces from my acoustic recordings. Sometimes I’d slow them down or I’d loop those recordings or I’d play them against the pieces that I had recorded” (see Figure 20.1). Electric guitars were an important primary color in Shore’s score, as they were for Asche and Spencer’s music for Monster’s Ball (2001). Beginning with an electric guitar, says Thad Spencer, “A big part of it was playing a guitar with a volume pedal into a very large reverb which had another reverb attached to it, so the original reverb would send a signal into a second reverb and then this might be sent into an echo. At the end of it you’ve got this simple chord on a guitar that is allowed to swell and ebb and flow, it’s elongated through one reverb and then perhaps elongated through another, and then EQs are applied, so you’re creating this texture that sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard before because of all the processing.”

BLENDING ELECTRONIC AND ACOUSTIC INSTRUMENTS I’ve been using electronics for twenty-five years now. But I’ve never seen it as a substitute for an orchestra. I believe it will someday be an accepted section in a symphony orchestra. —Jerry Goldsmith (1986)

Elfman’s Main Title in Spider-Man is probably half electronic and about half 110 piece orchestra. They’re working together, it’s almost like the orchestra’s a sweetener. —Marc McKenzie, Orchestrator

If you go to a movie this week, you will probably hear a score that blends some degree of electronics with some sort of acoustic ensemble. On big-budget films, the score may well integrate carefully prerecorded electronic, percussion, and rhythm elements with a 100piece orchestra. The process, described in Chapter 18, is not that complicated if you have the equipment to do the job, though it takes a great deal of finesse to get all the electronic and sampled elements sounding good by themselves, recorded expertly so they blend properly to sound convincing when heard in a theater with a first-rate sound system. FIGURE 20.1

On the track

558

Crash (1996)

© 1996 South Fifth Ave. Publishing (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Used by permission. Using Samples to Supplement an Acoustic Performance In some ways it can be disappointing to hear the orchestra try to replicate a well-executed mockup. The strings especially will have a great deal of presence and impact, particularly difficult to match on heavily accented passages. James Newton Howard describes a typical solution: “Sometimes I will take sampled orchestral hits and double my orchestra hits and sample marcato strings from my library and double the orchestral marcato strings because people always expect the strings to be louder than they Christophe Beck has explained his technique for working with sampled strings to get them to sound as good as possible under all circumstances (see Chapter 7 regarding mockups; and Figure 22.2 for an excerpt from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”). In general,

Electronic

559

you will want to devote a lot of time and attention to perfecting your sampled string sound and performance. Pieter Bourke describes how he works: “I do a lot of work with the amplitude envelopes. Instead of using one patch that the whole piece is played through, I usually separate out all the lines onto separate channels. I give the lines a separate program number, sometimes I’ll even separate individual notes and give them sepa-rate attack settings, or use velocities to vary filter and pitch modulation, which helps achieve a more varied string-section sound. Otherwise, if it’s just a straight patch, it sounds very blocky. So there’s a lot of tweaking going on. Even though the pieces are very minimal and it sounds like there’s not much happening, a lot of attention is put into making the samples sound organic. That work is especially important when the music is minimal, and sounds are exposed. If you had a lot of beats over the top you probably wouldn’t have to do it as much, but when the strings are exposed anything you can do to keep the ear interested achieves a much better result. Using Electronic Contemporary Music Director Michael Mann is always interested and involved in the music he uses on his soundtracks. He brought in Tangerine Dream to provide an early electronic music score for his heist film Thief (1981), featuring sequencer-driven ostinatos. He used Jan Hammer to score his television series “Miami Vice” (1984–89), which became a role model for subsequent television scoring using contemporary electronics. And he discovered a piece called “Sacrifice” by Pieter Bourke and Lisa Gerrard on their CD Duality when he was putting together his ideas for The Insider (1999), the dramatic film based on the true story of Jeffrey Weigand (Russell Crowe), the tobacco industry whistle blower profiled on “60 Minutes.” There is a good deal of score (composed primarily by Bourke and Gerrard), plus other cues by Graeme Revell, complemented by music that Mann licensed for the film. Figure 21.18 illustrates Bourke and Gerrard’s adaptation of their composition “Sacrifice” for The Insider. They have combined Gerrard’s voice (used as an instrument), contemporary electronic colors, and strings (orchestrated from their MIDI score by Scott Smalley). The acoustic and sampled strings were often blended together throughout the score (see Chapter 21). Emphasis on Acoustic Orchestration James Newton Howard’s score for Snow Falling on Cedars (1999) is a fine example of subtle electronics blended with acoustic instruments. This score is not simply an electronic ensemble mixed with an orchestra; rather, it illustrates the creation of an orchestra that sounds as though it has not only the traditional strings, brass, woodwind, and percussion sections, but also an electronic section, solo shakuhachi, solo cello and violin, and chorus. Howard unifies these elements for his dramatic purposes. Figure 20.2 scores Hatsue (Anne Suzuki) running on the beach. The cue begins at 00:22:47. Howard’s blend of electronics and orchestra is equally subtle and effective in many of his other scores, including the supernatural drama The Sixth Sense (1999). FIGURE 20.2

On the track

560

Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)

© 1999 Universal—MCA Music Publishing, A Division of Universal Studios, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Electronic

561

Emphasis on Electronics Sometimes the electronics are subtle, and sometimes they are the singular voice that sets the tone and sound of a score. “On a score like Spy Game [2001],” Harry GregsonWilliams says, “which is much more dense in terms of percussion and electronics, I viewed the orchestra very much as just an element. I did three or four days at Abbey Road [studio in London] doing orchestra and a bit of choir, but it was just an element. That wasn’t the score. The score traveled with me on a plane, the majority of it. You could categorize it as a lot of electronics, a lot of vocals, a lot of percussion, and then orchestra. So there would probably be four even categories there, and one is not king, necessarily, certainly on Spy Game. The orchestra did play a big part in a couple of moments in the film.” Thomas Newman’s scores for The Player (1992), American Beauty (1999), and Pay It Forward (2000) rely on electronic and contemporary acoustic instruments for their character and color. Although it is that music that we remember, the orchestra is often an

On the track

562

equally important element. Sometimes spare (a solitary sustained double bass/cello note after Griffin [Tim Robbins] murders the writer in The Player), sometimes predominant as it is in Newman’s score for Road to Perdition (2002), these scores are a fascinating mix of electronic, contemporary, and orchestral elements.

SCORING WITH ELECTRONICS When I’m composing, sometimes I’ll end up with over a hundred tracks of MIDI. —Trevor Rabin

It’s as much a compositional idea to sit down and be tampering with audio as it is to sit in front of a piano and be writing a melody. —Edward Shearmur

I’m not writing anything on paper. So it’s basically just a MIDI file. —Christophe Beck

The requisites for using electronics effectively in films are no different than those for composing any other good score. Using electronic techniques can give the composer a sometimes subtle, sometimes boldly different slant on things. Electronics can affect the sound, or even the composer’s overall compositional approach. Like most composers, William Goldstein has found tremendous stimulation from the medium. “Just listening to one of these effects immediately gives you compositional ideas. That is something that is very interesting with electronics. You will come up with things that you would not conceive sitting and writing for an orchestra because you only conceive of it because they occur and you notice them.” Finding Sounds Typically a composer will spend days searching through his library, finding appropriate sounds for a score and possibly editing them to suit his purposes on each specific project as he begins to work. New sounds will sometimes be sampled and prepared for use in the score. Jerry Goldsmith adds another week to his schedule on a feature film for the electronics. “I gather my basic materials. Then I will gather my library of sounds.” He doesn’t do much editing of the sounds. “I’m not ashamed to use factory patches. There’s nothing wrong with a standard sound. An oboe is a standard sound. It’s the notes you use.” His approach to scheduling the extra time for this part of the process is typical. Ideally, the search for the appropriate sounds to express the musical material a composer has envisioned and possibly already sketched can be a very stimulating and productive phase

Electronic

563

of the creative process, leading the composer to musical solutions that would not have occurred to him without the availability of these particular colors. Taking the extra time to keep careful notes and create special sounds during this phase will pay off in the long run, saving countless hours that would otherwise be spent searching for that sound that was obvious two weeks ago but can no longer be located. If scoring with one or more synthesists on a session, the composer should bring his own preselected sounds and samples with him to the stage. If you find yourself suddenly needing a new sound you haven’t prepared for, try the technique many composers used in the eighties. In his score for Brainstorm (1983), James Horner placed this description above a keyboard part: “Sparkly chord, beautiful, rich Vangelis-like.” Synthesist Clark Spangler explained at that time that to a synthesist, this meant, “Phase shift a CS-80 [Yamaha’s first 8-voice polyphonic synthesizer] string sound with something that pings, and add a delay device to the sound.” The written notes were represented by a mid-range A major triad. Horner used three different short descriptions to sum up his intentions. This is not unusual, and is really the only effective way to get what you want. Putting a known sound in an unusual setting is also effective: “The sound of an oboe playing under water” will get a good synthesist going. Spangler remembers the following description on a part: “Brain operation for sevenyear-old. Seven-year-old survives.” Spangler feels that was a very communicative notation. “There’s a lot of information within that—my part was just a single line, a piece of string holding it together, and the fact that he survived would have a different implication than if he had not made it. The composer was telling me about the dramatic moment and also the intensity of the picture. What might have been appropriate for a horror film would be quite different from a tender, sad family thing.” Creating Sounds A lot of the electronic work done on films involves not only sampling new sounds the composer will need for that specific project, but also working with acoustic and electronic sounds and processing them to customize the colors. “There are a lot of plugins we use now,” says Graeme Revell. “Previously we had a lot of dedicated boxes like Emus and Akais and so on, and now a lot of it—it’s almost like we’re recycling real material from real instruments, real orchestras, but we’re processing them so much using the plug-ins that it just becomes a whole new thing. In a way it’s interesting, it’s a little like we’re taking some of the techniques from what’s become pop in electronic music in the last 15 years.” Revell saves orchestral effects he samples on the end of his sessions that might be useful for future scores. “The more atonal techniques and the aleatoric and what we call ramps, where the whole orchestra crescendos to a particular moment—often I will record those not to picture so I have a library of those. I’ll be able to time-stretch them and use them in a new situation.” Edward Shearmur actually did extensive sampling sessions for K-PAX (2001), but he didn’t create brand new sounds or sample found sounds. “We sampled some very old synths, I think there was an Arp 2600 in particular. We weren’t just sampling single notes, we were sampling extended sequences and then we’d reinvent those samples. There would tend to be an evolving note or couple of notes. If you play a chord which is

On the track

564

playing a sequence of notes then obviously there’s going to be some kind of random interaction between the various notes playing by that sequence. And then that would kind of feed back into the compositional process. It was a very studio-intensive project, doing a lot of collage work and then really writing the orchestra around that.” On the DVD of Blair Witch 2 (2000), Carter Burwell explains how he created a group of sounds from nature that became his orchestra. “I began by choosing a set of instruments which would be specific to this film.” As an example, for one cue he used rocks being struck together, a trash can being played as a drum, and bicycle spokes being played, “but everything was so heavily processed, so that things wouldn’t be recognizable.” For the first cue in the woods, he sampled “objects from the forest, so you’re hearing rocks being struck together, some small stones, large ones, also splashing water occasionally, used rhythmically.” These choices were dictated completely by Burwell’s conceptual approach to this film. “Even though these things are called the ‘Blair Witch Project,’ you never actually see a witch. I felt that the forest is really the place where this evil comes from, so I thought that the forest should have a very strong musical identity, and I got that from these elements: stones, water, wood, wind.” Simplicity Simplicity is effective in any film, but especially in electronic music. A little synth sound goes a long way, and because of its often unique coloration and potential for doubling, it not only fills a lot of space but also attracts a lot of attention. There are many moments in Alan Silvestri’s electronic score for Clan of the Cave Bear (1986) when there are only one or two musical elements sounding at one time, and the transparency is very effective. Figure 20.3 illustrates how much can be expressed with this kind of simplicity. The sixteenth-note pattern looks much more complicated than it really is; it is performed on a keyboard that controls sampled vocalizing by Silvestri, and has the effect of a primitive percussion sound—an almost non-pitched rhythm.

RECORDING ELECTRONIC MUSIC The composer has five basic options in planning to record his film score: (1) prerecord some electronic tracks to be overdubbed later by a live ensemble; (2) preprogram electronic sequences; (3) record with a live electronic ensemble; (4) sweeten a live performance with electronic overdubs; (5) record his own performances at a home studio or at a commercial scoring stage or recording studio. Jerry Goldsmith has recorded his electronic music in every possible way over the years. He started out recording the electronic tracks first, because with the early instruments like the Arp 2600 and the Minimoog it was very difficult to duplicate the sounds at will, so everything would sound different in the studio. Then he started recording the electronic instruments on the scoring stage with the orchestra. “I tried balancing it acoustically with speakers on the stage along with the orchestra and it was wonderful but it was terribly costly. I tried balancing it in the headset, recording the instruments directly, and I had a mixer who was very good at doing that. But now, when

Electronic

565

you have three guys playing a MIDI stack together, sometimes I can’t remember who’s doing what. I find that the only way to do it is to record it and then go mix it down. Then I can go back and sweeten it myself. If I don’t like the way somebody played a part, I can play it myself during the mix—because the way it’s played is a very personal thing. It’s very hard to describe to someone how to play an electronic part. I can only tell the degree of modulation I want at the time I’m recording.” Prerecording Electronic Tracks The reasons for taking the time and effort to prerecord electronic material prior to a live scoring session are creative control, cost control, technical necessity, and the opportunity for more give and take with the filmmakers. By prerecording, the composer really controls the electronic elements of his score. He can fine-tune the colors he wants. He can try things out experimentally without worrying about the 30 (or 100) musicians sitting idle while he appears to be wasting half an hour wrestling with an idea that doesn’t work. He can refine the electronic parts so they are as flawless as possible. There are many electronic ideas that simply cannot be recorded well in a commercial studio environment without impractical delays. The parts may be too difficult to play well live in the studio; they may be ideally suited for a sequencerenhanced performance, where you can slow the sequencer down while sequencing to make an impossible passage playable. Or the use of effects may be a key element in the composition, and the composer will want to control each color’s individual rate of delay, decay duration, etc. He will need to hear all these instruments on the session with orchestra to know that the orchestral parts are really working properly with the film. Prerecording can take days or even weeks. Preprogramming Electronic Sequences As mentioned before, there are composers who bring their electronic sequences to the scoring stage and record synth parts live with the orchestra. The electronic instruments are routed directly into the mixing board, recording without miking. In most cases there is no synth sound coming through speakers so wearing headsets is essential to hear the synths and their relationship to the rest of the orchestra. Be prepared to allow extra time if you work this way; this procedure is usually much slower because of mixing difficulties and the search for perfect electronic colors. Recording with an Electronic Ensemble Witness (1985) was recorded entirely at Paramount Stage M with live musicians performing on their electronic gear (see Chapter 18). Maurice Jarre’s score has an atmospheric motif that is a long sustained chord (Figure 20.4), which recurs frequently during the first third of the film. Later on, the barn raising sequence is quite orchestral in concept and very acoustic in its effect. And the materials used for the murder sequence in the men’s room and during the shootout sequence at the end of the film are more “electronic” in approach, with sequenced moving figures and electronic percussion.

On the track

566

Sweetening a Live Performance with Electronic Overdubs This sort of touchup can be done on the scoring stage after the musicians have left, or back at the composer’s studio after the scoring sessions. It’s an effective way to continue to control the eventual outcome of the mix and electronic coloration and performance. Recording Self-Performed Performances Most of the electronics you hear on television and in the theater are created in private studios; some of these performances go directly on the air as is, and some move on to the scoring and dubbing stages. The finest of these facilities are up-to-date, wellequipped studios, sometimes at home and sometimes in an industrial building, that could easily be rented out as professional studios. The most modest are in an extra bedroom or a garage, but are no less able to deliver a high-quality sound that is fully competitive. The term home studio is replaceable with “personal studio,” wherever it is. How to Make It Work for You All this talk about freedom and relaxation can be misleading in one sense. Working this way requires an enormous amount of focus and discipline. Think about it: how else would the composer know what instrument was on which track; what patch came from which sampler used on cue 7M2; what the length FIGURE 20.3 Clan of the Cave (1996)

Electronic

567

© 1985 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

568

Electronic

569

of decay was on the digital reverb used on the solo guitar; on which instrument and exactly where and how on that instrument he could find the “modified Kalimba”; what colors are doubling the viola line? And that’s not all by any means. Organizational skills and fanatic note taking are absolute musts for success in an electronic environment. Everything must be logged, with every possible helpful notation indicated on the computer program. Everything recorded on computers must be saved and backed up with a second copy. Planning the Work Environment Although it is well beyond the scope of this book to discuss acoustics, sound insulation, and other engineering refinements, two aspects of the work environment are very important and should be incorporated into the earliest planning stages: proper ventilation and good lighting. The more successful you are in creating an airtight and consequently soundproof room, the more important ventilation becomes. As for lighting, you simply can’t work without it (see Chapter 17). The Equipment “The good news is you really don’t need much these days,” says Christophe Beck. “When I came out of school you had to spend ten times as much for equipment that was

On the track

570

one-tenth as good. So these days it’s simply a matter of $6,000 or so, starting with nothing, gets you a basic studio that sounds great and that you can do anything with. You may not have the flexibility and the efficiency that you would if you could afford better computers, better equipment, but there’s nothing stopping you from making incredible sounding music. With a laptop!” In the year 2003, what would that get you? Beck suggests this list: “One mid-level Macintosh, one PC to run GigaStudio [a software package, requiring accompanying hardware “for complete functionality,” that includes the potential for storage and manipulation of very large samples and sample libraries, using a PC hard drive], a master keyboard, an audio interface so that the audio can get from Giga into the Mac (something like a Mark of the Unicorn 2408—that’s for audio), a MIDI interface, and then maybe a thousand dollars for sound libraries for Giga. Because it doesn’t really come with much. If you’re desperate and unscrupulous then that thousand dollars could become zero by begging and stealing. That would be a great starter system.” You will also need a strong sequencing program and hard disc program (something like Digital Performer). As Beck says, the cost of the whole package isn’t really very much to invest in order to start your own business. Note that Digital Performer, (Mac compatible) includes Digital Sampling system FIGURE 20.4 Witness (1985)

Electronic

571

© 1985 by Famous Music Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission. that allows you to load a sample from any source and then use that sample in your music. Technical Assistance The busier you get the more help you may need. “In this studio,” James Newton Howard explains, “we have tons of samples and many, many samplers and lots of versions that are constantly being updated and changed and modified and Jim Hill keeps track of all the instrumentation and does the engineering and programming as well with me, it’s just a major contribution, it’s really a partnership.” However, this is technical assistance. “Nobody really polishes my mockups. There have been incidences where I say, ‘Listen, we have a volume issue here and there, go back and fix those volumes when you get a chance,’ but nobody plays anything or enters anything in there but me.” Other tasks that may be assigned to an assistant might include sampling and polishing the sampled material, drum programming, replacing and improving the composer’s sounds selected to

On the track

572

play his sequenced cues, cleaning up a cue’s MIDI files before sending it on to the orchestrator, and preparing for dubbing by assigning tracks to specific audio channels on a hard disc format such as Pro Tools.

SCORES FOR STUDY The reader is urged to study on DVD or videocassette the illustrations cited in this chapter, some of which are listed below, and also these further examples of the principles discussed. All timings cited are those on the DVD when available. The first number indicates the hour into the film, the second the number of minutes, and the third represents seconds. Approximate timings are included for films only available on videocassette as of this writing, and are so indicated. Electronic Instruments as Acoustic Re-Creations “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (Christophe Beck). Beck scored about half of this television series electronically during the second season (1997), all episodes for the third and fourth seasons, and a few episodes thereafter. (See Figure 22.2 for an excerpt from one of his scores for this show.) Gladiator (2000, Hans Zimmer). “The Gladiator Waltz,” described in this chapter. Electronic Instruments for Unique Sounds The Andromeda Strain (1971, Gil Mellé). All abstract electronics for this science fiction film directed by Robert Wise. Westworld (1973, Fred Karlin). Some cues are entirely electronic (including the scene in the robot repair room); some are a blend of electronics and electronically manipulated acoustic instruments (including all the chase music). Midnight Express (1978, Giorgio Moroder). Here electronic music is used to express the harshness of the Turkish prison system on a young American prisoner arrested for smuggling drugs, without sentimentalizing. Thief (1981, Tangerine Dream). Sequenced music with lots of ostinatos give this soundtrack drive. Cat People (1982) and Scarface (1983), both composed by Giorgio Moroder. Electronics are used to score these films with traditional techniques. Never Cry Wolf (1983, Mark Isham). An electronic score ideally suited for the subject and environment of this film about a man studying the habits and lifestyle of a pack of wolves in the Arctic. Clan of the Cave Bear (1986, Alan Silverstri). Often sounding deceptively simple, with electronic timbres that perfectly match the atmosphere and landscape of this film. The Green Mile (1999, Thomas Newman). There are moments in this score that sound completely electronic. Very effective is the cue used when the sheriff and his men find John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), which begins at 00:19:00 on a cut to the prison guard (Hanks) reading the transcript of how two young girls were murdered and Coffey

Electronic

573

was found with them. Eventually the orchestra is added to the electronics. There is also an interesting electronic effect that is heard whenever Coffey uses his healing power. Pay It Forward (2000, Thomas Newman). This score is a blend of electronics, contemporary, and orchestral scoring. Newman scores a very significant cue at the end of the film electronically; the cue begins at 01:52:01 during move in on Trevor (Haley Joel Osment) as his friend is being beaten by bullies, and continues through the stabbing. Narc (2002, Cliff Martinez). An all-electronic ambient sound score that works well in sharp contrast to the relentlessly gritty, dark, intense reality depicted in this film about two cops looking for the killers of an undercover policeman whose murder was unsolved. Manipulating Acoustic Sounds with Electronics Crash (1996, Howard Shore). Shore recorded three electric guitars and then manipulated that sound electronically for this bizarre story about people who crash their cars for sexual excitement (see Figure 20.1). Mockups Gladiator (2000, Hans Zimmer). “The Gladiator Waltz,” described in this chapter (see also Figure 7.1). Blending Electronic and Acoustic Instruments Almost any score these days will offer the opportunity to hear a combination of electronics and acoustic instruments. Sometimes subtly weaving in and out of the music, sometimes primarily atmosphere, sometimes the driving force of the music, electronics are generally contributing something to the soundtrack. Study the films cited in this chapter and in Chapter 21, and discover others. The following are two illustrations that will be instructive, but you are urged to find your own examples that you admire. K-PAX (2001, Edward Shearmur). A blending of Shearmur’s electronic sounds and orchestra, with piano sometimes creating a bridge between the two palettes, which is particularly appropriate for this psychological sci-fi drama about a man (Kevin Spacey) who claims to be from another galaxy (see Figure 10.9). Spider-Man (2002, Danny Elfman). This score has a number of moments illustrating the effective blending of electronics and orchestra. Emphasis on Acoustic Orchestration Almost any score by Jerry Goldsmith will reveal his careful blending of electronic and orchestral elements to create a primarily acoustic effect. The Sixth Sense (1999, James Newton Howard). An orchestral score utilizing electronics and the electronic manipulation of vocal sounds and effects as blended colors. Snow Falling on Cedars (1999, James Newton Howard). Subtle electronics blended with acoustic (including ethnic) instruments; the electronics are treated as a separate “section” of the orchestra.

On the track

574

Recording with an Electronic Ensemble Witness (1985, Maurice Jarre). This early all-electronic score was recorded live with a small group of synthesists and an EWI player. Although the “Building the Barn” scene is basically an acoustic idea scored electronically, the remainder of the score is conceived in electronic terms (see Figure 20.4).

Electronic

575

21 USING CONTEMPORARY MUSIC IN THE FILM AND television world, contemporary music never refers to a symphonic or avant-garde style. The term includes the current sounds and styles of any given moment in time, derived from all the pop, jazz, blues, rock and roll, folk, and commercial idioms. The style may be truly current, like disco when it first came to the States from Europe, or folk rock, punk rock and new wave, which were current when they became fashionable. Or the style may be a historical resurrection or updating of an older style, such as the folk music revival of the fifties and sixties or the mountain music used in the soundtrack of O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). All pop idioms are potentially contemporary. It happens that these idioms also have a common element: rhythm-section instruments (keyboards, guitars, basses, drums, and percussion). Except for the occasional a capella vocal group, these instruments will inform and influence the music. Solo instruments associated with these styles also add a contemporary flavor and credibility (blues harmonica, jazz trumpet, authentic fiddling, for instance). Without the use of one or more of these instruments, the score will most likely not be regarded as contemporary. Whether the rhythm section plays as a unit or more individually is immaterial. Even if they don’t function idiomatically they give any one of these styles authenticity. Used properly, these instruments can make even a symphonic score sound contemporary. At any given time the current popular success of an artist (e.g., Isaac Hayes—Shaft, 1971; Eminem—8 Mile, 2002); group (e.g., Tangerine Dream—Thief, 1981); or style (e.g., disco—Saturday Night Fever, 1977) can influence the tastes of producers and directors. For filmmakers in the eighties, “contemporary” began to mean synthesizeroriented pop and/or rock, because that sound was current. When a producer or director uses the phrase “contemporary score,” the word “contemporary” rarely provides enough information for a composer. He will still need the same sort of clear communication as for any other project; in this case, the naming of specific groups and their specific albums and tracks that are most relevant. USING CONTEMPORARY RHYTHM SECTIONS There are several basic guidelines for writing for contemporary rhythm sections: 1. Give them bass lines whenever appropriate, and a wellplanned structure. 2. Give them freedom. 3. Describe the style of the cue. Write It Out

On the track

576

All or most of a cue or score can be written out for the players. James Newton Howard carefully notated his music for mandolin and guitar in his score for The Man in the Moon (1991). He was very specific when he prepared his mockups for director Robert Mulligan and then found that “replacing some of the folk stuff was an amazingly tedious process because in those days I really required that the mandolinist play note for note.” You can see an example in Figure 6.13, which starts at 00:09:04 while Dani (Reese Witherspoon) runs into her house after church. It continues as she changes clothes and runs to swim in a nearby pond. Howard comments, “I think in the end I would have been better served by presenting this as an idea and being open for more of an interpretive performance.” He did do this in his 2002 score for The Emperor’s Club. “I did a lot of mandolin and guitars and sort of laid the basic structure, and very specific parts, but then I had [guitarist] George Doering and a couple of other guys come in and I would just play it for them. You know, musicians of that caliber get it, and they get it quickly, and then it’s much better for all concerned, especially the music, to just turn it over to them and let them go a little bit.” One such cue begins at approximately 00:40:41 and scores the testing montage. In 1991 Howard used a contemporary rhythm section to state the main theme of his score for Grand Canyon, an episodic film that required a concept that would tie together all the various people and elements in the story. His music is dependent upon those instruments for its effectiveness in this film (see Figure 21.1a and 21.1b, beginning at 00:00:25 just before “Twentieth Century Fox Presents” fades in from black). This does not mean that the music cannot be set for other instruments. When the film evolves to its ending resolution, Howard scores this chordal motif for French horns (see Figure 21.2, at 01:34:03). Give Them Bass Lines and a Structure When Mike Post and Pete Carpenter began their successful collaboration, Carpenter was an experienced orchestral and film composer, but he didn’t have any experience with rock and other contemporary idioms. Post remembers, “Pete would ask if we should give the rhythm section a chord sheet and I’d say, ‘No, you’ve got to be specific with the rhythm section. Don’t be afraid of them.’ “This is sound advice. The composer must let the rhythm section know what he expects from them, both musically and stylistically. This may be done verbally through a description of style and content, with musical notation and rhythms, or preferably both. FIGURE 21.1a Grand Canyon (1991)

Electronic

577

FIGURE 21.1b

© 1991 Fox Film Music Corporation (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

578

Frequently the bass line is an important aspect of the composition. If so, it should be written out. After a while, if the bass line continues in the same style, you may wish to give the player chord symbols and a note indicating he is to continue as before. Writing the bass line guarantees a certain compatibility between those instrumental parts that may be partially improvised (perhaps with the right hand of a keyboard chording) and those that are more completely written out. Any important accents will be picked up in the bass and other low-end instruments, and there will be a syncronicity between other instruments playing in that register. Drums and percussion should also have all these accents. This notation will quickly direct the rhythm section to a tight and well-knit sound. Figure 21.3 is excerpted from a cue by Christopher Young for his score for Bandits (2001). The cue starts after Joe (Bruce Willis) and Terry (Billy Bob Thornton) shoot each other at the bank (01:54:20). This excerpt begins at 01:55:09, on an upper register electric guitar figure that plays as body bags are zipped up and taken away during their getaway. The film composer is responsible for creating the composition. The rhythm section musicians, working with the composer to make the music as good as possible, may improve the materials significantly, but the composer will have given them an appropriate starting point and guidance. The musicians will be more inclined to bring their own suggestions to the project if they know the composer has put his best efforts into planning the score properly. They are used to contributing—composers count on that. As composer/keyboardist Michael Melvoin sees it, “I believe that the habitual creation of thematic material is what makes the top sidemen premium players.” When good stuff happens that you didn’t 100 percent envision, boy, you know, you just got lucky, you’re tripping over gold bricks. —Mike Post Give Them Freedom On the other hand, don’t restrict the rhythm players by overwriting. Howard’s music for Man in the Moon is loose and authentic, yet it is possible to write out everything only to find that the final performance is less than convincing. In general, it’s best to allow the

Electronic

579

rhythm players a chance to bring their know-how and mastery of the idiom to the project. The goal is to give them all the direction necessary to ensure the proper results, while letting them be as free as possible so they can add the right style and flavor. FIGURE 21.2 Grand Canyon

© 1991 Fox Film Music Corporation (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 21.3 Bandits (2001)

© 2001 United Lion Music, Inc. (BMI) In contemporary chases and other extremely rhythm-oriented cues, the entire rhythm section may be playing from nothing more than chord symbols and rhythm slashes. If their functions have been defined, this will probably work out better than anything the composer could write, and will take him much less time. But where their function must be more compositional, their parts will normally contain much more specific notation. Switching back and forth between written-out parts and chord symbols can be a very

On the track

580

effective technique. Mike Post is particularly aware of the enormous contribution such freedom can bring to a score. Like Thomas Newman, he admires and encourages the musicians he works with to join in the process. And he stresses how important it is for a composer to be aware of this potential. “In my opinion if you’re going to list the ten things you need to know to do this job, somewhere in that top ten is being able to access someone else’s creativity and know it when you hear it, and say, ‘I didn’t think of that. That’s a great idea. Do that.’ I think that’s a real talent. There are guys that walk in brain dead and clueless and write a chord sheet and say, ‘Okay, make a score for me.’ And certainly, you don’t want to aspire to that. But also, somewhere between that and walking in with every bow marking in, every breath, and every bend of every string—those guys are missing out, because they’re not utilizing the synergy that happens between players and the synergy that happens between you as a conductor/orchestrator/arranger/composer and the players. “I always walked in there and said, ‘I wrote this, I know what this is going to sound like.’ And then you’d fire it off and you’d go, ‘Well, I knew about 90 percent what it was going to sound like, I didn’t know [French horn player] Vince DeRosa was going to sound that good, you know.’ You’ve got to be ready for that 10 percent or 15 percent or whatever that number is, you’ve got to be ready to let the fact that you hired really great players make your music a little better.” Christopher Young discovered how well this can work when he was recording his music for The Hurricane (1999), a score that he developed from jazz and blues roots. He has several cues in his score that feature the wordless vocals of two or three singers, including a female soloist. He had written everything. However, he says, “Not everything that I wrote, she sang. She would take motives and then go off on her own and do things. And I walked in, I had spent so much time trying to perfect these lines, that I at the onset was hyper about wanting her to duplicate exactly what I had put on the page. And then I realized, ‘Okay, when she tries to give me exactly what I’ve written she’s uncomfortable with it, and it’s constipating her performance’ So I finally said, ‘Okay, here’s a little motive, please just go with it.’ And so a lot of what she’s doing there is based on some ideas but I finally opened up the floodgate and let her just do her thing.” You can hear her singing during the Main Title, at 00:50:15, during his sentencing; and at 02:18:45 on the court steps at the end of the movie. As we have seen, it is possible to design the music with so much freedom for the musicians that it is aleatoric. When Hans Zimmer was working on Black Hawk Down (2001) he wanted the musicians to be completely free within his parameters. “We were doing crazy stuff where we would teach them certain gestures: arm up in the air means highest note, arm down means lowest note, so go away. You’re not looking at paper anymore, you’re looking only at the conductor, you’re following him, so they would never know what would hit them next. And it took a while. Players who I thought weren’t timid suddenly became very timid.” Describe the Style Without question the most effective way for the composer to describe to the rhythm

Electronic

581

section what he has in mind is through the use of examples; a specific artist, even a specific song, will tell them exactly what is expected. The best rhythm section players are so knowledgeable that they can often recognize which role model the composer is thinking about just from chord symbols. Michael Melvoin speaks as both composer and studio keyboard player: “There are a variety of approaches to film writing. And some of them really still just apply a particular style or apply a particular arranging approach or keyboard approach or synthesizer approach from a particular kind of record, or maybe even a specific record, implicit or explicit. Sometimes you can just read a lead sheet and know that the unspoken menu of the day is a certain hit song. And then you begin to apply stylistic knowledge that fills that in. But what you’re seeing in front of you is a lead sheet.” In such a case, indicating the title and artist of the role model will leave nothing to chance. It is also a good idea to have an audio cassette of the record and a portable cassette player at the session just in case one of the musicians doesn’t know the record. Know the Style The effective composer of contemporary scores is aware of the trademarks that distinguish various styles with which he is working. For example, there are specific idiomatic approaches to heavy-metal guitar that are unique to that style. In order to talk to the recording musician effectively, the composer must be able to lead a rhythm section musician in the right direction. He may often find himself suggesting that a certain slide, bend, fall-off, or tone color not be used for a particular cue. Stylistic nuances can be very important in film music, and the composer will want to retain control of these elements. You can’t do that unless you have studied the CDs and know the style. Trevor Rabin, who was lead guitarist and composer for the rock group Yes for 14 years, has drawn on his knowledge of contemporary music styles when appropriate. His score for Rock Star (2001) skillfully weaves in and out of the heavy metal songs that are performed on screen. Although his underscoring is frequently subtle and understated, it features rhythm section instruments and fits in perfectly with the intense authenticity of the songs. The excerpt (string parts only) in Figure 21.4 scores the dialogue scene as Chris (Mark Wahlberg) is telling Emily (Jennifer Aniston) that they will have their own car to use for traveling with the band. The cue begins at 01:11:43 after Emily tells Chris, “It’s not about the car.” (See “A Closer Look at Three Contemporary Scores” later in this chapter.) Write for the Players It helps if you know who is going to be playing a guitar or keyboard part. Individual musicians have their strengths and weaknesses, and when you are aware of these you can approach their parts with them in mind. “The great writers write within the capabilities of the player, or write into the strong suit of a player,” Melvoin says. If the composer is relying on a friend or contractor to recommend the rhythm section musicians, he should ask as many questions as possible about their reading, their solos, their stylistic preferences, and strengths. Listening to a tape of their work is a good idea. Thomas Newman works on many projects with the same small group of musicians,

On the track

582

very collaboratively (see Chapter 12). Newman describes his work process for the first cue in Road to Perdition (2002): “I would have brought in a harp sequence and said to George Doering, ‘I really want to hide the sequence a little bit. How can we interest the sense of strummed propulsion? What can we do? And it’s in three and I maybe need accents on the one.’ And then we’d start messing around. Maybe that’s too low a register or the sound is too muted. ‘What has a crisper, toppier type of sound?’ And he’d pull out another instrument. ‘Oh, yeah, that’s kind of neat. What if we started there?’ And by then he’s got answers to some of his own questions, and he says, ‘Well, if we did this, maybe we can do something in a lower register in such and such an instrument.’ We’re doing overdubs to my recorded sketches. He knows that in measure 9 the second beat we’re going to do a pickup into measure 10 which is where the groove might begin. I’m on paper by then usually, or if I’m not I’m on tape ready to notate on paper. Sometimes they’re ahead of the paper process. But in any event they know that bar 10 is a 5/4 bar.” What Newman especially likes about this process is the communality of it. “It’s fraternal. It’s friendly and kind, as opposed to, ‘Here I am on the podium and I’ve got to do my thing and I’ve got to know when it should be a B-flat instead of an A.’ You know, if you bring in music that is propelling and I think here’s where one starts, they can say, ‘No, no, no,’ they think it’s the 4 beat of say a two-bar pattern. Sometimes you can take advantage of that, that I hear differently than you hear. I hear emphasis and accent in a different place than you hear it. And there’s no right answer for that, obviously, there’s no, ‘I hear it right and you hear it wrong.’ This is where I decided to notate the one. I like that stuff. I like that I don’t know things and that we can come in together and experiment and get to frontiers of color and gesture that you never could sit in a room and conceive. That’s really inspiring to me.” There are many examples of this in Newman’s scores. In Road to Perdition, note the inclusion of a fretted instrument drone, plus bass and percussion, in the cue that underscores Michael (Tom Hanks) driving to the warehouse. The cue begins at 00:19:05 on the cut to Michael coming down the stairs to breakfast. New elements are added bit by bit: soft harp strums at 00:20:36, then guitarlike harp plucking, the addition of a midregister strummed drone, followed by a dirgelike feel emphasized by bass drum and pizzicato cellos and basses beginning at 00:21:19. The main theme from Pay It Forward (2000) is illustrated in Figure 21.5; this particular excerpt begins at 00:35:08, just as we cut to another student making a presentation. The cue starts prior to that, at 00:34:58 at the end of the reporter’s talk with a homeless man, and features piano and a steel drum sound. Electronic Elements Everything we have discussed about electronic music is applicable to contemporary scoring. Electronic percussion of all sorts—sampled and performed using MIDI— keyboards, sampled guitars, and basses can be heard a great deal in film and television scoring. Used idiomatically, all these electronic applications become relevant to contemporary music. Remember that although FIGURE 21.4

Electronic

583

Rock Star (2001)

© 2001 Warner-Barham Music, LLC. All Rights for Warner-Barham Music, LLC. Administered by WarnerTamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 21.5 Pay It Forward (2000)

On the track

584

© 2000 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Electronic

585

the use of rhythm-section instruments gives the score a contemporary feel, it doesn’t mean that the composer must have drums and a bass part playing “time” on every cue, or even bass and drums at all. It is in fact the judicious mix of rhythm section and nonrhythm-section scoring that will add drama and a cinematic flavor to the score. Scores in which one or more elements of the rhythm section play continuously can get repetitive very quickly, or even worse, can lose their effectiveness long before the final chase. John Williams’ score for Catch Me If You Can (2002) uses many techniques inspired by the “swinging” sound of the sixties jazz scores, but never the rhythm section as such—the orchestral instruments do it all.

CONTEMPORARY SCORES The written note is never the complete expression of the music with any kind of contemporary score. Contemporary scores can be fully notated, but again, there is really no way to notate the excitement and the color of idiomatic music, or the performance interpretation so crucial to a contemporary score’s final impact. In addition to the scores already cited, excerpts from the following scores, composed from 1980 to 2002, are offered as a way of suggesting the range of styles and expression possible while scoring with a contemporary approach. Confidence A contemporary drama about a con man (Ed Burns) who works a scam on an accountant for the Mafia, Christophe Beck scored Confidence (2003) with a blend of orchestra—“a slightly oldfashioned sound in the strings, call it ‘Neo-Schmaltz,’ “says Beck—and a variety of contemporary elements. “The stylish nature of the film’s cinematography and editing suggested an equally stylish approach to the score. I juxtaposed the strings with more overtly futuristic sounds like a sine-wave bass, spacy filter sweeps, and lots of delay effects.” Figure 21.6 illustrates how Beck handled the sometimes difficult task of making a very romantic moment sound and feel contemporary. It begins on the fullest statement of the love theme, approximately 62 minutes into the film.

On the track

586

Desperately Seeking Susan Thomas Newman’s score for Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) takes another contemporary approach, with a light touch. The movie is about a timid housewife (Rosanna Arquette) who becomes fascinated by and involved with a colorful free spirit (Madonna), leading to an episode of mistaken identity and intrigue. The score becomes almost a third person, following them around the city on their quirky escapades. The excerpt in Figure 21.7 (00:09:04) plays during Madonna’s first arrival at the Port Authority at night. Note the digital delay effects. (A new musical section precedes this excerpt, at 00:08:45.) Hoosiers Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Hoosiers (1986) combines electronic and orchestral instruments, and utilizes an early drum machine for the contemporary drumming. Figure 21.8 is an excerpt from his sketch. The cue begins at 01:01:06; the excerpt at 01:01:34. The Hurricane Christopher Young created a jazz and blues-based score for this 1999 film about real-life boxing champion Reuben Carter, who, though innocent, was convicted of murder. His score uses an appropriate harmonic language, and also Harmon-muted trumpet solos, flugelhorn, and occasional solo voice. Studying the film’s soundtrack will reveal some changes in the score, not uncommon when working with an idiom that demands a certain freedom of performance, especially from the soloists. The cue excerpted in Figure 21.9 begins at 00:52:53 after the Warden says to the guard, “to reflect on how he intends to behave in this institution.” The excerpt starts at 00:54:02 as the camera moves in to an extreme C.U. of the solitary light bulb in Carter’s cell. Nine to Five Charles Fox provided a multistylistic score for Nine to Five (1980) to suit the needs of this freewheeling romp. For the office montage near the end of the film, when Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Lily Tomlin have taken over the office and are issuing executive instructions to change the company’s methods FIGURE 21.6 Confidence (2003)

Electronic

587

© 2002 Lions Gate Films Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

588

Electronic

589

of office management, Fox used a contemporary big-band sound (Figure 21.10). The rhythm section gives this cue its contemporary feel, while the brass provide the punch. The brass (plus string pad) also play more compatibly with the action than a more keyboard- or guitar-oriented orchestration would have, by suggesting a common denominator sound and impulse that the entire group of workers at the office might relate to. The piano is completely written out, and the first two bars of the bass line are written, giving the player a clear idea of what Fox had in mind for the part. Payback This 1999 contemporary gangster movie starring Mel Gibson benefits greatly from Chris Boardman’s abstract jazz score, an inventive use of the idiom. The main theme appears in the Main Title, a big-band composition starting out with percussion and a synth log drum line playing ascending and descending octave leaps over a bluesy bass line that includes the tritone. Boardman carefully indicated the drum set accents he wanted in order to achieve the correct feel, but the guitar was given verbal directions on the scoring stage. There is an interesting relationship between the way David Shire approached his atonal scoring for big band in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974; see Figure 14.18) and Boardman’s score for Payback, written 25 years later. The Payback excerpt begins on the cut to the street after the diner scene, as titles continue (Figure 21.11, at 00:03:46). This material occurs also as Graham (Mel Gibson) tries to escape from the trunk of his adversary’s car (01:33:54).

On the track

590

Rush Hour Lalo Schifrin scored Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon in 1973, a fine example of contemporary scoring with ethnic touches. When director Brett Ratner approached Schifrin to score Rush Hour, he wanted Schifrin to use Dragons score as a role model for his film (see page 22). Acceding to the director’s request, Schifrin combined sampled ethnic sounds, prerecorded percussion, and other electronic colors performed live with orchestra. In the Main Title, his theme is played by 2 electric mandolins, electric harpsichord, and 2 EWIs (to sound like “oboes”) plus a prerecorded “Rhodes” keyboard sound. Cymbalom, synth, EWI “Bamboo Wind Flute,” and a soprano sax are added at the end of bar 23. The rhythm includes tabla beginning in bar 19 (see Figure 21.12). The excerpt illustrated in Figure 21.13 is from one of the chase sequences (the cue starts at 00:43:35 after Lee [Chan] spots Juntao and races after him and we cut to Juntao running away). Stir Crazy Tom Scott uses a funky, jazz-oriented score to play dramatic sequences in Stir Crazy (1980). In the film, two New Yorkers (Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor) are mistakenly thrown in jail in a redneck western town. The two escape during a climactic prison rodeo contest at the end of the movie, crawling under the stadium and into a friend’s van waiting outside. Scott’s use of this contemporary idiom gives the sequence suspense and whimsy simultaneously—just what was needed (see Figure 21.14, which begins at 01:28:57). Tootsie Dave Grusin’s score for Tootsie (1982) has an opening main theme that underscores a complex montage of events in which scenes of New York City are intercut with shots of actor Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) applying make up. Like most Main Title cues its tone sets the audience up for the forthcoming theatrical experience: in this case light, urban hip, yet soulful. Grusin uses an upper register synth color for his melody, with rhythm. The excerpt (Figures 21.15 [a] and [b]) begins in progress at 00:01:06 as Michael coaches Sandy (Teri Garr) while the “Tootsie” title appears on screen. Note that some of the essential elements that define the character of the piece are written out, including the guitar picking and keyboard fills. The bass and keyboard “comping” are free. When Michael first appears on the streets as Dorothy Michaels, the music changes style, becoming funky and driving, as if to counter the impression that there might be anything feminine about him at this point. It also encourages the audience to fully enjoy the visual surprise. Grusin’s approach highlights this memorable cinematic moment (00:20:35; see Figure 21.16.).

A CLOSER LOOK AT THREE CONTEMPORARY SCORES

Electronic

591

The Deep End The Deep End (2001) is a very unusual psychological drama, told primarily from the point of view of a woman (Margaret, played by Tilda Swinton) who does everything possible to hide her son’s involvement in what she believes to be the murder of a man who she has learned was his lover. The directors, David FIGURE 21.7 Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)

© 1985 Donna Dijon Music Publishing, Inc. (BMI). Administered by Buttermilk Sky Assoc. International copyright secured. All right reserved. FIGURE 21.8 Hoosiers (1986)

On the track

592

© 1986 Hemdale Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

Electronic

593

On the track

FIGURE 21.9 The Hurricane (1999)

594

Electronic

595

© 1999 Songs of Universal, Inc. (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

FIGURE 21.10 Nine to Five (1980)

On the track

596

© 1980 WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Electronic

597

On the track

598

Electronic

FIGURE 21.11 Payback (1999)

599

On the track

600

© 1999 by Icon Distribution Inc. All rights controlled and administered by Ensign Music Corporation. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

Electronic

601

On the track

602

Electronic

603

On the track

FIGURE 21.12 Rush Hour (1998)

604

Electronic

605

© 1998 New Line Music Co. (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

FIGURE 21.13 Rush Hour (1998)

606

Electronic

607

© 1998 New Line Music Co. (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

608

Electronic

FIGURE 21.14 Stir Crazy (1980)

609

On the track

610

© 1981 Gold Horizon Music Corp. Used by permission All rights reserved. Siegel and Scott McGehee, wanted the film’s music to be different. “They were not interested in having a traditional melodramatic orchestral score for their movie,” Peter Nashel says. “They wanted another character in the movie, in the music.” His concept evolved from that directive. “I was trying my best to score the script but simultaneously score the environment—score Salt Lake—and that’s where a lot of the natural sounding instruments in the score come from. The acoustic guitar was an element to give it a rural sense but definitely not ‘country.’ Definitely not something that would be construed as, ‘Oh, I’ve heard that before.’” His goals: “Number one, that the music and the themes that are in there would be perceived as characters more than just simply underscore. And number two, that it was connected environmentally to where the movie took place, because I thought that Salt Lake in the movie played as a character itself.” For the main theme, Nashel points out that “there’s a slightly Eastern European feel in the piano and there’s an angularity there that I think reflects Goren [Visnjic, as Alek Spera], who is this man from the outside that’s come in to whitebread Salt Lake.” Because Margaret’s son, Beau, is a trumpet student preparing to audition for college, the Ravel piece they used for his onscreen performances influenced the score, connecting this story and character element with Nashel’s original music. “In very subtle ways, the music that I wrote draws inspiration from the Ravel. So that there’s one section in the movie where a bit of the score fades into the introduction of the piano and trumpet

Electronic

611

performance of the Ravel, and it’s meant to be one seamless thing that feels like it comes straight out of the score. A lot of what influenced me on that has been the score to the movie Heat and some Debussy. There’s that notion of it relating to French impressionism—watery in its most blown up sort of a way.” The composer used a lot of technology, programming the entire score before having it performed. “I am into some of the more experimental software that’s out there and I did use that

on certain sound-design aspects of the score. I enjoy using Reaktor and Reason and some of these programs that just help you manipulate sound in a completely unconventional way.” With Reaktor, Nashel says, “You can introduce outside audio elements. You can introduce a piano, a voice, a guitar—anything that you might want. You can input that as a sound source into Reaktor and have it play as the catalyst for generating completely out-of-this-world sounds. And a lot of the atmosphere for The Deep End was created using decay from reverbs that were fed back into Reaktor and looped so that they just sounded like some eerie little watery-floaty atmosphere. That was an effort to synchronize myself with what the directors were looking for, which was at times experimental or modern/contemporary pop music. A lot of the European pop music that they were listening to. Reason works differently, allowing the complex manipulation of loops. Nashel notes, “As soon as you start to treat these programs in an abstract way, it’s unbelievable what a lot of these software synthesis and software programs can come up with. It’s certainly in the contemporary classical world where devices of chance and chance operations are used

On the track

612

and you just completely reinvent what the sound source is and who the audience is. So they come in handy a great deal. It’s definitely a lot of fun. Six hours go by and you’re like, ‘Oh, I’ve just been screwing around with this one drum loop.’ The decay of the reverb of piano chords created the atmosphere for Deep End” From the opening notes of Nashel’s Main Title music you become aware of the potential for a fresh contemporary score, which is well realized in this film (see Figure 21.17). The Insider The evolution of the score for The Insider (1999) is an interesting study in the collaborative interplay that can exist between the director, music supervisor, and composers. It is a fine example of an entire score being informed by a pre-existing piece of music, “Sacrifice” from the 1998 CD “Duality,” composed by Pieter Bourke and Lisa Gerrard, who then went on to create perhaps 60 percent of the music. “Originally Michael Mann approached us to license that,” says Bourke. “He felt that piece would work well as a main triumph theme for Jeffrey Weigand (Russell Crowe).” The concept for the soundtrack was developed by Mann, working with music supervisor Curt Sobel. There is a use of their adaptation of this piece at 01:34:31, near end of Jeffrey Weigand’s testimony, just before, “Thank you, Doctor.” The camera stays on Weigand and then cuts to an exterior long shot of him standing on the lawn. “Sacrifice” is used again in the following 3-minute cue, which begins at the end of the preview of the “60 Minutes” show, cutting to Weigand driving at night. It returns in a 4-minute cue near the end of the film, when Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer) explains what they FIGURE 21.15 Tootsie (1982)

Electronic

613

© 1983 Gold Horizon Music Corp. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

On the track

614

Electronic

615

FIGURE 21.16 Tootsie (1982)

© 1983 Gold Horizon Music Corp. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

On the track

FIGURE 21.17 The Deep End (2001)

616

Electronic

617

© 2000 Fox Film Music Corporation (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

618

are going to do about using the show, after he says, “Infamy lasts a little longer” (see Figure 21.18). Mann hired Sobel to coordinate all of the music in the film, and to bring to the final music track a consistency even though there were to be cues contributed from a variety of sources, some original for the film (including a few cues by Graeme Revell) and some licensed preexisting works. Sobel and Mann were responsible for maintaining continuity and Sobel also functioned as music editor. Mann continually placed music in the film with his film editors, and the spotting was determined in this way, as was the final use of all the various musical elements in his film. Bourke and Gerrard were brought in to do three specific cues. “Michael sent us a script,” says Bourke, “and he had the whole film storyboarded in his office, with location shots of the places he was going to film, shots of the actual buildings involved in the story. He took about two hours to take us right through the film. At that stage we walked away feeling like we had a pretty good understanding of the film. We took a script away, went back to Australia, and Lisa and I just began writing straight away without any images from the film. I think this was an advantage for us, because the strongest themes were the ones we wrote without image. I think the first tape we sent to Michael had seven pieces on it, just based on that initial meeting and our initial emotional reaction to what he told us.” As Mann sent Bourke and Gerrard notes about their cues, he assigned them additional scenes to score. “Michael sends a lot of memos,” says Gerrard, who had written a few cues for him for Heat (1995). By way of example, she recalls, “Michael sent us a memo that went something like this: He said that, ‘In this position that he’s in it is a position of subordination. And he’s feeling very under pressure….’ Michael uses a lot of abstract terminology in order to help you to understand the work.” In another instance, “We did a piece of music for the opening of the film and it sounded very Islamic. Because they were in Islam, you know. And he said to us, ‘I don’t want a geography lesson. I’m not making a National Geographic film.’ By making that kind of comment it helps you to understand what he doesn’t

Electronic

619

Pieter Bourke.

Lisa Gerrard. want, which is very important to help you find what he does want.” Finally, during the last two months of postproduction, Mann asked them to come to Los Angeles to do still more composing. Sobel got everything together for them to reproduce their studio arrangement back home. “Over a three-day weekend I had rented the same equipment they used in Australia. I spent several days on the phone calling all over the country looking for this equipment, because some of it was not available in L.A.

On the track

620

I took it up to Audio Rents up in the Valley and put it all together. We plugged everything in before we moved the stuff to the house.” Bourke says, “One advantage to being [in Los Angeles] was having Michael come to the studio while a cue was in progress and just give us a bit of feedback on the spot. It might be, ‘I don’t like that low string,’ or, ‘That percussion isn’t working for me.’” As is so often the case, there was also a lot of interpretation necessary as they worked things out. “I know sometimes we’d come away from meetings and Lisa and I would compare notes and try to work out, ‘Well, what was he saying there? What does that translate to musically?’ So that is really tough. I remem

Curt Sobel. ber one cue, he was saying, ‘This one’s great because it sort of holds emotional ambiguity.’ It was usually about the emotion. And that was the tricky bit, trying to translate that into musical terms.” When Gerrard worked with Bourke on this project, she was frequently vocalizing into a mic that recorded their improvisations together (she worked this way with Hans Zimmer on Gladiator also). “Because she doesn’t sing words,” Bourke explains, “she just sings in sort of her own invented language which she’s been singing since she was a young child, it means you feel the emotion of her voice but you don’t have to worry about following words or translating words or thinking, ‘What’s she saying there? What does that mean?’ All you can do is feel it. That’s always the way she works. And the other thing that Lisa does really well is use her voice texturally, so there’s a number of cues where we might have multitracked her seven or eight times. Some of the slow drone-based pieces that might have some percussion over the top. There’s usually a couple of tracks. of Lisa blended in with strings or drones in the background. And they’re not always obvious.” In addition to writing additional cues, they also began to polish their prerecorded performances and prepared for scoring sessions, during which they replaced sampled strings with acoustic ones and sampled piano with real piano. “Quite often,” says Bourke, “the final mix was a blend between the sampled strings and the real strings. Scott Smalley, the orchestrator, did a fantastic job of translating our work for the orchestra so that when you put the two together they were quite seamless. And that gave it a bit of extra depth. Scott was great in making sure the orchestra came in exactly where they

Electronic

621

needed to. Normally they’ll have the MIDI file of the cue, but if you have a long attack on a string, the sound is triggered but doesn’t actually appear until maybe half a bar or a bar later. He would work between the audio file and the MIDI file and constantly check where the notes were coming in. He’d have a DAT mix and a MIDI file and he’d load it into Performer, and that allowed him to view the MIDI file and the audio WAV file on the same screen.” Rock Star Trevor Rabin acknowledges the challenge that Rock Star (2001) presented for him: blending his music perfectly with the rock FIGURE 21.18 The Insider (1999)

On the track

622

© 1999 Touchstone Pictures Music & Songs, Inc. (ASCAP). Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Electronic

623

and roll performances in the film was tough. “You had this heavy rock band from the music point of view, so you had to integrate to that so on certain cues where it had to be kind of rock and heavy I had to find a place where it achieved that but didn’t get bigger or more overbearing or cumbersome than those songs, which were obviously this massive sounding big-chunks-of-meat kind of music—that’s how I looked at the band. Because of that I had to do something that sounds heavy and has that kind of feel to it but it mustn’t be overbearing when the big band goes when they come in. So, finding that place was interesting.” Authenticity was no problem for Rabin, whose background includes 14 years writing and performing with the rock group Yes. Nevertheless, he realized how important it was to gain the listener’s trust and confidence by being absolutely accurate about the rock and roll: “You know, if you hear in these rock movies people saying certain things, me being from that world, you to do that.” think, ‘Oh, God, you’d never say that.’ I didn’t want the music A lot of his score was supportive of more personal moments in the film, and in those scenes he found himself being more and more understated. “The softer parts really needed to feel almost in a state of dream but not get in the way, and at the same time be emotional. There’d be times where I’d write something where I’d be cerebrally drawn into, ‘Yeah, this is what it needs, this is how it must be done,’ then come back and think, ‘but it just doesn’t work, there’s no heart in it,’ and I’d redo it. I felt it had to be quite delicate for that movie, funnily enough” (see Figure 21.4). Tone was not always easy to determine either, even for the director, Stephen Herek. “Sometimes he’d just say, ‘I just don’t know.’ At times you’re not sure if it’s going to be Spinal Tap [the satirical “mockumentary”] or if it’s a love story or where it is. So it was hard trying to musically join all those things together.” Unlike Armageddon (1998) for which the tone of Rabin’s score was easily determined, there were many more issues

On the track

624

regarding tone in Rock Star. Rabin found that each cue was much more dependent upon what came before and what came after.

SCORING WITH A SOLO ARTIST B.B. King was thrilling. He could play the phone book and it would be great. —Ira Newborn

Working with great solo artists can be a real high or it can drive you crazy. If the composer can actually get what he needs on tape, though, it is always worth it. The one overriding criteria is: What they do most naturally must be just right for the film. Otherwise you’re in trouble. Two other guiding principles: 1. The more freedom you give them, the greater their contribution. 2. The most reliable work method is to prerecord the orchestra tracks and then overdub the artist. Alternatively, you may in some circumstances wish to (or find yourself required to out of practical necessity) record the artist first and then add orchestra.

Electronic

625

Trevor Rabin. Reading Music Many don’t read music, though there are some solo artists who do. Some, like former studio guitarist Lee Ritenour, now a renowned jazz soloist, and jazz saxophone virtuoso Branford Marsalis, are schooled musicians who are as at home in the studio as they are on stage. But the composer must ascertain without any doubt the level of the artist’s reading skills before writing a note for him. You can’t always rely on the artist to be objective about this; the composer should check with other musicians, contractors, or if necessary a personal manager or recording engineer with whom the artist has worked. It is always a good idea to get the cues to the artist on a CD or tape before the session, so he can become familiar with the tracks and what he will be playing. If the artist doesn’t read, this would seem to be absolutely mandatory. But even thorough preparation of this sort isn’t always foolproof. In working with legendary blues singer/guitarist B.B. King on his score for Into the Night (1985), Ira Newborn knew King couldn’t read. “I gave him no chart because I wrote it so that he could hear it. And he has very, very good ears. He doesn’t care what key it’s in. I told him what key it’s in. He can’t read, but he knows keys.” On the song Newborn wrote, there was a demo: “I sent a demo to him and he swore to me constantly that he had rehearsed it endlessly. What it really was—I taught it to him in the studio. It was like pulling teeth out of a hippopotamus.” This was before hard disc recording and archiving, so everything had to be done on multitrack tape. “The guitar performance and the vocal performance on that thing—there are literally millions of pieces. He was sitting out there with a little cassette player playing the demo that I’d made. He’d listen to the phrase and sing it into the microphone. So first I’d get a whole vocal and then I’d start updating each phrase and record each phrase until I got a good one all the way through. Then I’d do the same thing on two or three other tracks. We slaved another 24-track. And we did the same thing with the guitar solos.” Give Them Freedom When you decide to record a major artist on a soundtrack, you have implicitly decided that the sound and the quality of the music that he plays is perfect for the film. Otherwise, why spend the time and money involved to make it all come together? Having done so, the composer must figure out how to get the most out of the artist and still guide him and control his performance so it becomes totally integrated into the score. If the artist reads, this is somewhat easier because the solo parts can indicate what passages are to be played exactly as written (write “as written” on the part); when the artist should phrase freely (write “phrase freely”); and when the artist is free to improvise on chord changes or a melodic line or both. When they don’t read music, the process gets more difficult, and sometimes requires great fortitude and patience. Newborn realized B.B. King didn’t read, so he took this into account when he planned and composed his score. “We sat in the studio and I even put the picture up. I would play the music a couple of times and he would sit and listen. I

On the track

626

would say, ‘Just fool around.’ Then I would go out in the studio and watch the movie with him and show him where he should do something. I would just motion to him. But often I didn’t have to do anything. He just got into it. I’d say, ‘B. B., just look at the picture and play what you think should go there.’” This technique works beautifully if you really know what to expect from the artist. But the composer should allow ample time for this, and be sure to make and save enough takes for each cue so that there is plenty of material to work with later. In this instance, Newborn left several empty tracks on the 2-inch master so he could piece together sections of different takes. easier than it was back in 1985. Hard disc recording and editing makes all this much, much easier than it was back in 1985. Studio Musicians It isn’t just a solo recording artist who requires this approach. Many times the composer will write for studio musicians who come to the scoring sessions to play important solo parts. When James Horner began recording his score for 48HRS. (1982) he realized he needed to shift his emphasis somewhat from the totally notated score he had written to something that would give the musicians more freedom. “The first cue [saxophonist] Ernie Watts played, I realized after five minutes that this guy was much better off ignoring everything on the page and just getting the feel of what I wrote. And that’s what we did. And that’s how I told the percussion, drums, and bass, etc. to proceed.” Because Horner had written out so much for the musi-cians, they knew what he was going for and were able to bring their own background to their performance. Prerecord the Tracks; Overdub the Artist Although Horner recorded his score for 48HRS. live, the safest plan when working on a score with any special solo artist is to record the orchestra (or rhythm) tracks first and then overdub the artist later, as Ira Newborn did with B.B.King. Even isolating the artist so that he can be recorded live with the orchestra is risky business and doesn’t allow for the finessing that can bring out the best in a soloist. It can help if the soloists are present for the recording of the basic tracks, because they become more familiar with the music and can sometimes suggest an adjustment that will help everything go smoother later on. Recording them separately will ordinarily be the best procedure, as Howard Shore did with Ornette Coleman when he scored Naked Lunch.

SCORING WITH A GROUP Usually when a group is used in film scoring, they are self-contained and independent. Film composers work with organized groups infrequently, but the guidelines for working with them would be the same as for solo artists. With a group, though, it is also wise to allow time for as much rehearsal as necessary prior to actually scoring the film, especially because their previous recording experience may have been albums where time schedules are almost unknown.

Electronic

627

CONTEMPORARY SOURCE MUSIC The source music in contemporary films can be an excellent opportunity to incorporate various styles. Often the choice of these styles is arbitrary and depends on the mutual tastes of the producer, director, and composer. After all, a bar could conceivably have a number of different kinds of contemporary music coming out of a juke box, any one of which would be credible and effective for the scene. Most often soundtrack album considerations will dictate a particular style or a specific song, typically licensed but occasionally original for the film. In that case, it is probable that material may already be temped onto the track, to be licensed or replaced later. If the composer is actually involved in writing a song for source music, he will definitely want to discuss style and content with the director, using whatever role models necessary to make his point. The one criterion: make it authoritative. If it doesn’t sound authentic, it won’t be convincing and can sound as out of place as an English-speaking actor using a German accent in the middle of a group of British actors performing Shakespeare.

SCORES FOR STUDY The reader is urged to study on DVD or videocassette the illustrations cited in this chapter, some of which are listed below, and also these further examples of the principles discussed. All timings cited are those on the DVD when available. The first number indicates the hour into the film, the second the number of minutes, and the third represents seconds. Approximate timings are included for films only available on videocassette as of this writing, and are so indicated. About a Boy (2002) Badly Drawn Boy has provided an entirely contemporary score for this engaging film starring Hugh Grant, using strumming guitars and other rhythm instruments. American Beauty (1999) With the exception of a period piece like Little Women (1994), Thomas Newman’s scores generally have contemporary elements and important solo colors. It doesn’t matter whether the material is partially generated electronically or not, as the effect is contemporary. See also Pay It Forward (2000). Bandits (2001) Christopher Young’s score has a number of cues that are primarily contemporary rhythm with individual solo instruments. These include the cue at 00:25:50 as Joe (Bruce Willis) and Terry (Billy Bob Thornton) drive to rob a bank; the cue beginning at 01:28:37 (with

On the track

628

guitars and steel guitar) and continuing through the bank robbery; and at 01:54:30 as both men are shot down. Charlie’s Angels (2000) Edward Shearmur interweaves his new music between a huge number of licensed songs, working his way around them in a seamless fashion. The Deep End (2001)

Peter Nashel uses acoustic guitar and piano as primary instruments in his main thematic material for this interesting dramaand score. Grand Canyon (1991) An excellent use of rhythm section instruments to express James Newton Howard’s overall concept for this score. Listen to Howard’s use of the Main Title materials at 01:46:16, as Simon’s son Otis walks away from his family’s new apartment. After this, as Otis runs from the street kid; that sequence is scored with electric guitar and rhythm. As Otis is caught by the cops, the music returns to the Main Title materials. Earlier in the film, when the film cuts from Davis (Steve Martin) on the operating table to Claire (Mary McDonnell) running, the music segues at 00:30:10 to electric bass and percussion for 7 1/2 bars as she runs, before the voices enter. And at 01:53:11 as Simon (Danny Glover) gets out of his car and walks toward his apartment, Howard uses hand drums, an electric bass sound, and a chordal pad. This continues as Simon finds his son huddled in a corner, they talk, and he holds him. Hardball (2001) This score by Mark Isham makes good use of contemporary materials in this film about an addicted gambler who coaches a kids’ baseball team. The Hurricane (1999) Christopher Young’s score combines elements of jazz and blues and is very consistent in its concept, so you will find examples of his scoring within this style and musical language throughout the film. i am sam (2001) John Powell scored this intimate film with small forces including guitar and bass, threading his way between a number of licensed Beatles songs that are integral to the plot about a mentally retarded man (Sean Penn).

Electronic

629

The Insider (1999) Pieter Bourke and Lisa Gerrard’s music for this film about the duplicity of the tobacco industry contributes pulse, texture, and understated tension. The pre-existing licensed music that director Michael Mann used on the soundtrack coexists well with their score. You can hear an example of their adaptation of this piece at 01:34:31, near the end of Jeffrey Weigand’s (Russell Crowe’s) testimony, just before, “Thank you, Doctor.” K-PAX (2001) This score by Edward Shearmur, a mix of electronic and orchestral elements, ends up feeling contemporary because of his choice of colors. Acoustic piano becomes the most prominent bridge between the electronic and acoustic worlds of sound. The Man in the Moon (1991)

James Newton Howard blends acoustic folk with an Americana(and at times Vaughn Williams-influenced) orchestral score. Payback (1999) An effective use of jazz score for dramatic purposes. The main theme appears in the Main Title, a big band composition starting out with percussion and a synth log drum line playing ascending and descending octave leaps over a bluesy bass line which includes the tritone. Rock Star (2001) The story of a musician who becomes lead singer in his favorite rock band, the soundtrack is loaded with rock songs, which Trevor Rabin weaves around with his subtle and authentic score. Some moments to listen for: 00:26:50, as the lead singer leaves his band, a thoughtful cue with rock colors and added strings as Emily (Jennifer Aniston) talks; 01:02:50, a soft cue with keyboards and percussion, evolving into a more rockoriented sound; 01:11:50 as Chris (Mark Wahlberg) and Emily talk about her business deal in Seattle; 01:20:00 as she returns; and 01:34:00 with the new singer on stage and no other sound, just score. The Rookie (2002) Carter Burwell scored this film using predominantly guitars and rhythm instruments throughout. The true story of a 39-year-old high school coach who tries out for the major leagues as a pitcher, Burwell’s concept is appropriate and convincing. Rush Hour (1998)

On the track

630

Lalo Schifrin returns to Enter the Dragon territory with his score for this Jackie ChanChris Tucker vehicle. Rhythm section, some electronics (both live and prerecorded) and orchestra work together. Tootsie (1982) A contemporary comedy in the early eighties, and no less so now. The music is also timeless, and makes excellent use of the rhythm section. Scoring with a Group The Cell (2000) Howard Shore surrounded The Master Musicians of Jajouka with the London Philharmonic and encouraged them to play the music they always play. This can be heard clearly over the opening sequence in the film.

Electronic

631

22 SCORING FOR TELEVISION TELEVISION SERIES Doing episodes is the best schooling possible for a beginning composer, because you get all the variety of styles, the variety of dramatic situations. —Bruce Broughton

I thought there ought to be a way to make a partnership with Pete Carpenter and learn how contemporary music technically can be put to film. After us the flood-gates opened. —Mike Post

It’s all challenging, but writing music is the least of the problems. It’s all the details around it that really, really are difficult. —Laura Karpman

EACH YEAR THERE ARE many single episodes of proposed television series produced for consideration by the various networks and cable companies. The greatest amount of this production is in the spring, often scored in August and September for the fall season, with a somewhat more modest number of these single episodes, called pilots, submitted throughout the year as possible replacements for existing shows. Only perhaps two out of ten pilots are actually scored prior to being selected as series. The rest are temp tracked. Because the networks and cable companies frequently only commit to a small number of shows (four to six is not unusual), midseason replacements can occur at any time. Be prepared for tremendously onerous deadlines. —Laura Karpman The ability to manage the volume of work grew as I did it. I know the first couple of seasons it was a lot harder for me to deal with the amount of music and meet the deadline [on “JAG”]. —Steve Bramson Schedules

On the track

632

Composers usually have five to seven days to score a television episode. “I get it on a Wednesday and then the following Thursday it dubs,” says Mark Snow, who scored all of the “X-Files” episodes. He finished his work by Wednesday of the following week so that his mixer could mix down and deliver everything to music editor Jeff Charbonneau who prepared the score for the following day’s dubbing session. “I once had to turn around an episode in about three and a half days,” says Sean Callery, who began scoring the series “24” when it first aired during the 2001–2002 season. “I look at it this way—we’ll always get something done when it’s needed. You can be inspired by having a time crunch. Because you have no time to worry about making it brilliant. And so you function more in the moment, if you will, and sometimes your work is just completely there. On the other side of that is, if I have a 35- or 36minute score, if there’s four or five days that’s good, to me that’s healthy; those are very busy days, but that allows enough time.” Schedules are remarkably similar for everyone. It sounds like a one-week turnaround, but in most cases that includes making changes, mixing down, and allowing enough time for the music editor to prepare for dubbing. Callery gets an episode of “24” on Wednesday, or sometimes Thursday morning. By Monday evening he has to be ready to play back everything, mixed roughly, so revisions can be made. He mixes on Tuesday and Jeff Charbonneau prepares the music for the dubbing session that begins on Wednesday. Christophe Beck’s schedule for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was similar; he spotted on a Tuesday, and the show dubbed the following Wednesday. He would send his score to the producers midway through the process and continue working while he waited for their notes to come back, “which, for me, meant bringing over one or two live players, recording them, and then mixing it down. Which usually took a day. And then by that point, if I had notes I would address them the best I could. Sometimes it would involve bringing a player back. And sometimes I didn’t get notes until the second day of the mix, in which case depending on what they were and how many they were, I’d do the best I could.” The scores were 18 to 30 minutes long: “It got longer as we went on, we spotted with more music. So I would be comfortable budgeting myself six minutes a day, writing Buffy music, which to me now seems preposterous.” One of the most difficult aspects of scoring episodes is the huge amount of detail you have to stay on top of. “A lot of technical details that are really important,” says Laura Karpman. “For example, on ‘Odyssey 5’ they’re doing the postproduction in Canada so my music editor has to send cues over via Web site. And it’s a huge job. It’s just that you do so much so quickly and trying to keep the level of it up is really difficult.” Spotting There is sometimes a formal spotting session, but sometimes not. With “Buffy,” “it’s a formal spotting session at the produc-tion office,” says Christophe Beck. “And it’s a very efficient spotting, it rarely takes much longer than watching the show without stopping to spot, simply because after the first few episodes anyway, we sort of had it down. And there wasn’t much to discuss in every episode because we’d done it all before.” There are dramatic situations in a show that recur from week to week, Beck notes. “There’s certain

Electronic

633

things that are scored pretty much the same way every time: Fight sequences, horror stings, that kind of thing.” A fair-sized group participated in the spotting sessions. “There was the executive producer who created the show, Joss Whedon, sometimes a writer, sometimes a picture editor, definitely the music supervisor, the associate producer (the guy in charge of postproduction), the music editor, and the sound supervisor—it was also a sound effects spot at the same time. Sometimes we’d watch a show and we’d be done in less than an hour for a 45-minute show.” The show was viewed on a television monitor from a videotape. If there was no tape ready, everyone squeezed into an editing room. Electronics “It is a black box business, and a software business,” Mike Post says. He has two people on staff who are responsible for researching and purchasing new equipment for him. “They do nothing but have binoculars and scan the horizon for whatever’s next. If anything comes out, and I don’t have it, they’re not doing their jobs. I say, ‘look guys, this is the deal. Everybody’s got access to the same things here. So any guy that’s sitting in his garage in Tarzana can compete. Now, supposedly, hopefully, I’ve got an edge in education and in experience. But the truth is, you know, we all have access to the same orchestras now. Now it’s how good do I play? How well do I conceive, how well do I execute?’ And that’s why I have these two guys, and they’re working 15 hours a day to make this stuff sound better. They’re instructed to err on the side of too much. If it even looks like it might have two good sounds in its bank of 20,000, buy it. Buy it. You find the right sound and all of a sudden the thing is composing itself.” Most composers would agree with Post’s assessment. Yet interestingly, both Snow and Callery use the Synclavier, one of the earliest hard-disc systems that combines sequencing, sampling, and the storage of sounds into one machine. Although the company that made it is long out of business, they both continue to do amazingly well with it. Callery was an early sales rep/demonstrator and maintenance expert for the company, and met Snow through one of his customer service visits. Snow is a believer. “The secret to my success of getting it down quickly is just the Synclavier—the efficiency of it is beyond belief. Nobody really wants to believe it. You know, the composers who say, ‘Oh, that’s a dinosaur, oh, you can’t get it, the company is out of business, they truly don’t understand why this thing is so amazing!” Whatever the hardware and software may be for an individual composer, there is a premium on sounding unique. Post, who may be doing four or five different television series at any one time, is especially sensitive to this issue. “You’ve got to give a personality to each of these shows. Ninety percent of the emotional cues are going to be string based, and if you use ‘Orch P‘or any of the other strings and you cross collateralize those between shows, all of a sudden everything starts sounding the same. But that’s where firepower, in terms of echoes, delays,

On the track

634

Mike Post. [and] processing, is important. And we make a concerted effort to make sure that the strings for the ‘Law and Order’ shows don’t sound like the strings for ‘NYPD Blue.’” Post adds more individuality in other ways. Originally a rock and roll guitarist, he still adds his solos to his scores as needed. “Those guitar licks on ‘Law and Order: Criminal Intent,’ I bought a specific guitar for that, it’s a baritone guitar that I use as a slide guitar, that’s pitched a fourth down, it’s in between a bass and a guitar, and nobody else does it. I’m trying to find every way I can to be different” (see Figure 22.1). The Use of Samples to Re-create an Orchestral Sound Strings ofen are sampled to replicate the sound of an orchestral string section, as a part of the overall sound along with electronics and acoustic rhythm-section instruments. But there are a lot of situations in scoring television projects that require the replication of an entire acoustic orchestra, similar to the mockups done to demonstrate an orchestral score (see Chapter 7). This is almost always done for financial reasons (see Chapters 5 and 25). The earlier discussion related to the creation of excellent sounding mockups applies to this type of assignment. For “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Beck presented a basically orchestral-sounding score, using samples supplemented with some live musicians. Figure 22.2 illustrates this sound; it occurs approximately 49 seconds into the cue. “This episode,” says Beck, “features an alternate universe where planet Earth is overFIGURE 22.1

Electronic

635

Law and Order: Criminal Intent (2001)

© 2001 Universal Network Television LLC. All rights reserved. Used by permission. FIGURE 22.2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3 (1998)

© 1998 by Fox Tunes, Inc. (SESAC). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

On the track

636

run by vampires. The penultimate scene in the show is a tragic slow-motion montage of several of the main characters (including Buffy herself) dying in an all-or-nothing vampire battle. The elegiac quality of the cue was suggested by not only the tragic content of the scene, but also the dreamy nature of the slowmotion images.” Beck added a wordless female solo and a live flute, “used in key places to sweeten string lines, to help with the legato problem common when using sampled string libraries.” Some composers will not accept shows that require total replication of an orchestra, including Laura Karpman. “I just can’t stomach a totally synthesized orchestra thing. I have all the stuff that one needs to do that. And I have to fully flesh out demos, but I tend to work with what I know I can have. It’s not just a poor man’s orchestra, I find that everybody’s unhappy when you do that, because they’re always moaning and wishing that they had a big orchestra. So it’s better just to wean them off that and work with the resources that you have and just be as intensely creative as you can be.” She does blend MIDI with live musicians, “but then if I’m doing something like that I’m generally not trying to make it sound like a big orchestra. I’ll do a string orchestra overdub and maybe bring in a couple of woodwind players and so the score is for woodwind quartet and string orchestra.”

Electronic

637

MAIN TITLE THEMES Certain sounds, compilations of rhythms and little riffs, sometimes can be very thematic. And if it’s a very clever combination of sounds and instruments, that’s as good as a great melody these days. —Mark Snow

The creation of Main Title themes for TV shows has always been very important for producers and network executives. In the past, great emphasis was placed on a memorable melody arranged in a distinctive way. Now, fashion has changed, and the approach taken in the great television themes that still remain a part of American culture has evolved to suit the changing times. The themes for shows such as “Star Trek,” (Alexander Courage), “Mission Impossible” (Lalo Schifrin), “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” and “The Waltons” (Jerry Goldsmith), and the more recent contemporary themes like Mike Post’s for shows such as “Hill Street Blues” and “NYPD Blue” are the rare exception featuring memorable melodies, but the sound of the Main Title music for today’s shows is just as important as ever. Today, the theme may not be a “theme” at all, but rather a rhythmic groove with an identifying sound and no melody. There will always be television series that call for Main Title music that is melodic and in keeping with the characters and dramatic sensibility (the 1995 theme for “JAG” by Bruce Broughton is an example of that more traditional approach), but there are fewer of these. Very often the theme is created by one person and then another person scores the individual episodes. Thomas Newman composed the theme for “Six Feet Under,” which during the 2002–2003 season was scored by Richard Marvin. Jon Hassell and Pete Scaturro created the Main Title music for “The Practice,” scored during the 2002–2003 season by Marco Beltrami. Danny Elfman’s theme for “The Simpsons” has introduced that show for many years, with Alf Clausen scoring the individual episodes. The mood and concept of the theme may be entirely different from the episodic scoring, as is the case with the intelligent, dramatic one-hour show “The Practice,” about a legal firm specializing in thought-provoking criminal defense cases. The Main Title music is all rhythm and sound, with no melody at all. It’s purpose, as television Main Title music always has been, is simply to catch the attention of a viewer who might otherwise change channels during the break between shows. The music for the episodes of “The Practice” is traditional orchestral-sounding scoring, totally in keeping with the dramatic values of the show. “The point is,” says Mark Snow, “that these things can be as effective with just some clever sound if it’s handled right. You just hope that it’s unique, and a great inventive combination.” Creation of the “X-Files” Theme Mark Snow explains the genesis of his theme for “X-Files,” a lengthy process involving a lot of dialogue with executive producer Chris Carter, and an eventual trip to the network: “Chris Carter sent me 12, maybe 20 CDs of different things that he liked. Very eclectic.

On the track

638

From Philip Glass to movie scores, some rock bands, world music, whatever, and said, ‘Gee, I like the drum thing here, I like the voice thing here, I like this thing here.’ He said, ‘I don’t want it to be too slick, I don’t want it to be too commercial, I want it to be very simple, but if you can also come up with the next ‘Twilight Zone’ theme that would be good too.’ ‘Oh, thanks a lot. Okay.’ It didn’t feel like pressure as much as it felt like a little bit unfun because I felt somewhat inhibited, to whatever degree, 10, 30 percent, but I felt inhibited. “So I did four themes actually before the one that’s on, and each one met with the same reaction from him: ‘Boy, this is really great, but it’s just a little bit like this, try another one and move this over, da, da, da.’ Kept doing it, kept doing it. And he couldn’t have been more respectful and nice and everything, and I was actually feeling good about my relationship with this guy, ‘cause he seemed reasonable and it seemed like something good was going to happen, although I didn’t know what, at the moment. “Then, after the fourth one, I said, ‘Look, why don’t you just let me try something—let me just erase all this stuff and we’ll try something completely new and see what happens.’ And he said, ‘That’s fine. We have time.’ So he walked out of the room, I put my elbow down on the keyboard by mistake, there was the echoplex style delay echo on the piano and I said, ‘Wow! That sounds like a cool sort of accompaniment.’ So I did that and I did the theme, the whole thing, but the first version of

Mark Snow. that was a little more orchestrated with more bells and sounds and stuff, and he said, ‘Boy, that’s great! That’s really cool. Just take this out, take this out, take this out,’ and he turned it into what it is. And it’s really simple and luckily it didn’t go a minute, it was only 40 seconds, ‘cause if it did it might have gotten a little bit repetitive, but it was just about the point where it was fine. “And Chris wasn’t a guy to be all exclamatory and jumping up and down. A very low key guy, and then it was, ‘We’re going to go to the network and play it to them.’ And there was a meeting arranged with four guys from the network and him and me and we go in and he looks at his watch and says, ‘Oh, my God, I’m late for the meeting with

Electronic

639

blah, blah, blah, so just take care of it. I’m sure it’ll be okay.’ So I go in, alone, and here are these guys in suits. ‘Hi, how are you?’ ‘Great.’ ‘Oh, let’s hear it.’ ‘Okay, put it on.’ It goes on. Boom, done. And I’m sitting there trying to be neutral and confident. And these guys are looking around at each other, and sort of uncomfortable. I think they thought they were expecting to hear some blast off, and they just didn’t know what to think. And it was this marvelous discussion. ‘Well. You know it really—Bob, what do you think?’ ‘You know, it has, you know, I feel it’s really, uh—what time is that other meeting we’re going to? Oh, you know, let’s digest this. It’s really interesting.’ They didn’t know what to think. And I thought, These guys can’t wreck this. It’s too cool to be wrecked.’ Anyway, I think Chris got with them and said, ‘Hey, shut up, just let it go.’ And then literally in a month there was such great response and these guys, I’m sure, were going around, ‘We heard it first. We told them it was great. We knew it. The moment we heard it—bing. Magic!’”

COMPOSING I never try to pull out old cues and rehang them. I believe that would take more time than just writing. —Mike Post

The music for “24” completely evolved. One episode cascades into the other. —Sean Callery

I’ve learned to delegate where I’m really going to need the time to come up with something new because of the story. —Steve Bramson

Mike Post compares his method of composing for television series to the way silent movie pianists and organists used to accompany movies in the days before sound. “I sit, I watch a scene, I play it. I don’t put anything on paper. It’s the very, very odd time that I’ll actually sit down and write something. Now, I was doing it up till about two years ago [2000]; in the case of ‘NYPD Blue’ I was still writing cues down, handing them to guys to input, and making little notations, I’ll play this lick, I’ll play that lick, ‘cause I knew how I wanted to play them. But it just got so stupid from a time standpoint that I said, ‘You know what, I’m coming in there, I walk in, I look at the scene, if it’s a scene that has motion to it and needs a click and needs a constant pulse I’m tapping my foot. Okay, what’s that? It’s 132. Okay, fine, now find out where this cut, this cut, and this cut is. Fine, those are the three signposts that I’m going to make a little turn at. Okay, lay that out for me, let me see what looks like. Okay, fine.’ “And I start playing. I look for a loop. Or I look for a basic groove, or ‘Set me up a

On the track

640

little drum set here, here’s what I want to play,’ I play it. Now, what’s happened is, because there is no orchestra, because this is from a pure compositional standpoint, this is a less time-consuming process now. For me it is: look at it, pull the trigger. Look at it, pull the trigger. Well, that works well for me. I don’t know if I’m terminally ADD or whether I’m just very lucky, but, you know, it’s a good thing I’m in television, and television has a sense of immediacy. I don’t know that I could spend seven or eight months doing a movie. It’s like, ‘Hey man, look at it and play! What do you feel?’ It’s so immediate, it’s like playing a solo at a gig. “And I’ve found that it made the real spontaneity more accessible. Not that I don’t write fast on the page, ‘cause I do, and not that I don’t think fast on the page, ‘cause I do, but this was just another way that had slightly more immediacy.” Post used to have half a dozen composers working with him, writing cues for him at his direction, following the format of the music for each show, and receiving cue sheet credit (for performance credit and payments through ASCAP or BMI). Now he writes everything himself, except source music. “What I need now is not compositional help, what I need now is the electronic equivalent of orchestration. Am I going to sit there and scroll through every pad to find the right sound? No. I do it on the pilots, and maybe the first two or three episodes. But from then on I should have a guy with me that is smart enough to have picked up what we’ve established and carry it through.” In 2002 Laura Karpman scored the Sci-Fi Channel cable series “Odyssey 5” primarily electronically in her own studio, with occasional acoustic instruments added. In one episode, she uses her voice manipulated in various different ways using Pro Tools and Digital Performer to create multilayers of antlike sounds, an empathetic sound suggesting the African Driver Ants that have befriended a six-year-old girl. Figure 22.3 illustrates the beginning of this cue, during which treacherous Trackers attempt to capture the girl and harness her power. Scoring Around the Sound Effects There is natural competition between the music and sound effects on television episodes just as there is in motion pictures. Composers have learned it is generally best to get out of the way just before a major effect. “When there’s anything that’s a real sharp attack,” says Snow, “like a punch, gun shot, a body slam, something Bang! Boom! Chung! I find that in TV when you compete with it, it minimizes both. I tend to go afterwards. So punch, then the music hits. That always worked really great in the ‘X-Files.’ I’m either out before the effect, or I’m just treading water before the effect, and then after the effect I come smacking in with something. In TV when they don’t have a ton of time to dub the thing, that really seems to work great. It gives air to the effect and to the music.” Designing your music to account for major sound effects that you know will be in a scene can be very effective. When Callery was working on an early episode of “24,” there was a scene in a power plant, in which Keifer Sutherland (as Jack Bauer) escapes by releasing steam valves, which is high-level white noise. “When I took a look at that scene I said, ‘There isn’t anything in the mid-range that’s going to ever be heard in here.’ So I kept it big, tutti percussion, and high strings when I could. And I’m happy to say that that music cut through that scene to a certain extent.”

Electronic

641

WORKING WITH THE PRODUCERS Generally, the producer or an associate producer will be working with you on a television series. On “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Christophe Beck was sending over every cue every week to the executive producer’s office, dubbed onto videotape. A day or two later he would receive a fax with his notes. “In fact I don’t even know what it’s like to work on any project without preview ing every cue. I’ve always done it that way.” On “Odyssey 5,” Laura Karpman had to work with the executive producer, who was in Canada, via phone, fax, and Web site. Spotting was done on the phone. “What we’ll basically do is prespot, get really good notes, send them up to the producer, and then sit and work through the film.” Her finished cues were sent via the Internet for his comments and notes. Sean Callery does a playback for himself before playing the show for the producers. “You’ll sometimes come to a part of the show and you’re working sometimes on a section so closely that I’ll either overbuild or under-acknowledge. Sometimes your perspective gets a little lost if you’re tired or you’re under too FIGURE 22.3 Odyessy 5 Episode # 103 (2002)

On the track

642

© 2002 CPTV Music, Inc. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

Electronic

643

much [of a] time crunch. I try to get the show done by the early afternoon and I’ll do a playback and I will inevitably make little tweaks and little revisions. I’ve sometimes even rewritten entire sections that I just felt, ‘Oops, I don’t think that was quite right.’ You have to be careful there, too, because if you’re tired when you’re looking at the show you can sometimes be a little judgmental, and sometimes you’ve just got to say, ‘You know what, I’m just going to leave it.’” The Networks and Broadcast Companies There are times when one or more network executives begin to function as producers, giving the composer their own notes regarding the music. On a series called “Haunted,” Mark Snow’s directive from the producer was to create atmospheric, ambient music. “And then the show didn’t do well and the network exec calls me and says, ‘Man, you know, come on, just ramp it up now. Just add the percussion and stuff.’ But I’ve got to take these things with a grain of salt. I can’t do something that’s too stupid. I think what it needs is when there are some really great whammo moments, just to jump all over it and really attack it a bit with bashing accents. It’s tricky.”

On the track

644

Snow realizes that the dialogue with network executives can be difficult to interpret. “When the network people talk, it’s not very sophisticated in our language. They’re polite and respectful, but I’ve learned from experience that it’s not about trying to educate them or to make them feel musically stupid, but just to basically see through it, understand it, and say, ‘Very good, I’ll take that note and I’ll implement it.’ As he says, their notes are not specific. “You have to read through it a bit. You say, ‘Okay, the reason for this call is that the ratings weren’t so great. Therefore, in their way of thinking, just louder, faster is better than not.”

DUBBING I had a mixer tell me once they never even look at the track sheets I print out for them. The guy said, ‘We’re working so fast, I just keep the faders up, and then when I hear music I deal with it.’ —Sean Callery

I don’t want to give them anything to mess with. I give them three tracks, because they’re doing surrounds. —Mike Post

Everyone agrees that in television it is far better to send a minimum of tracks to dubbing. While Mike Post sends three tracks, which is the minimum, others will go up to six or eight. Karpman sends eight tracks (four stems) when that seems appropriate, and less when necessary. “For ‘Odyssey 5’ we’re going to only four, because they don’t have time to mix it. I’ve never sent more than eight tracks. Never have. Nobody wants it.” Richard Marvin brings in a stereo mix for “Six Feet Under.” Sean Callery sends separate stems for percussive accent events, sweeps, and other specialized sounds. “Things that I just have an instinct that they would want autonomous control over. For example, in the early episodes of ‘24’ there was a ticking clock sound I designed. That was a very interpretive sound, it was almost like a sound effect even though it was part of the music. And I split that out as often as I could because I wanted them to be able to have the control over how much you wanted to hear it.” This is a very necessary degree of separation, even on a television schedule. Give the dubbing stage the control they need to protect the drama. Nonetheless, Callery discovered while listening to the broadcast of one episode that there was a synthetic sound he used in one section of the show that was extremely prominent, even though during dubbing it had not been particularly obvious. This can happen because during the final technical stage of transfers and transmission of the shows from Los Angeles to New York and back again to Los Angeles by satellite, the sound is often compressed and/or limited, and may in fact be reequalized as well to emphasize the dialogue. Neither the composer nor producer can prevent this from occuring.

Electronic

645

SCORING WITH ORCHESTRA With so few series scoring with an orchestra, shows like the “Star Trek” franchise and “The Simpsons,” which typically uses a 35-piece orchestra, are unique. Alf Clausen has been scoring “The Simpsons” since its second season, beginning in the fall of 1991. Not surprisingly, schedules are the same as all other series; he scores an episode each week. He usually receives a finished videotape, but there are times when some of the animation may not be in place yet. The timings remain constant in those cases, so scoring to sync is no problem. Although the show is animated, Clausen was asked to score it as though it were live action. “I was given a directive…that The Simpsons’ is not a cartoon, but a drama where the characters are drawn, and that the emotional content of the score should be focused in the direction of a drama.” The major difference between “The Simpsons” and all other shows is that it relies on an enormous variety of music styles. As such, it is difficult to imagine the series being scored any other way than with an orchestra with the flexibility to go in any direction, sometimes from bar to bar. “The greatest composing challenge (other than just keeping up with the schedule mentally and physically) has been to try to make some kind of musical sense out of the cues when I have only a few seconds to make a musical statement. We have a joke on the scoring stage that I can make you feel five ways in thirteen seconds. We say it in jest, but the reality of the situation is that I am required to do just that quite often.” Clausen brings in other instruments from time to time to augment his basic orchestra—an accordion or harmonica, for instance—including extra brass for an episode entitled “Cape Feare,” which referenced Bernard Herrmann’s famous movie scores. Clausen comes to each episode with a fresh point of view. “I have intentionally stayed away from composing individual character themes and have focused instead on giving each story its own theme and thematic development whenever possible. That approach helps to give each story its own special identification, more like individual mini-movies.” So only a few characters have any identifiable theme, including Krusty the Clown and Mr. Burns.

SCORING LONG FORM The same concerns that face the composer scoring a TV series arise in television long form. Schedules for two-hour movies made for television are often no more than two weeks or so. “Speed is essential,” says Laura Karpman. She had a 12-day schedule on one, and although throughout the industry there might be as much as three weeks from spotting to dubbing, the time allotted can be as little as a week and a half, or even ten days or so at times. Karpman’s score for the 20-hour miniseries Taken (2002), scored for orchestra, had to be done in very little time. “It’s a big miniseries so there are themes that carry through so it’s not quite as onerous as it sounds. Definitely one gets faster the more experienced one is.”

On the track

Laura Karpman. FIGURE 22.4 Taken (2002)

646

Electronic

647

© 2002 Songs Of SKG (BMI) Worldwide rights for Songs of SKG administered by Cherry River Music Co. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

On the track

648

One of the distinct differences between episodic television and long form is the potential for much greater scope in the longer films. With a 20-hour drama to work with, Karpman was able to develop her materials to a much greater extent than in even most two-hour movies made for television. As the Steven Spielberg production describes itself, “Taken is an epic saga that weaves together the stories of three families over multiple generations—and their crucial roles in the history of alien abductions.” In Figure 22.4

Electronic

649

Karpman’s whimsical cue scores the scene in which an extraterrestrial “squirrel” lures Jesse Keys (James Kirk) into his spaceship, which appears to Jesse as an enticing tree house. The score combines orchestral fantasy with darker sound design elements.

THE USE OF SONGS During the 2002 television season, the producers of “The Sopranos” licensed up to 100 source songs per 13 episodes. The licensing of existing songs is not at all unusual; shows that did this during 2002 included “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “The West Wing,” “Providence,” and “Six Feet Under,” among many others. License fees at that time were expensive, going up as high as $20,000, but the trade-off was the believability of an authentic, often recognizable song. There are original songs being written and produced for dramatic series also. T-Bone Burnett, producer of the huge hit soundtrack album for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, has been creating new material for “Crossing Jordan,” for instance. Normally, the composer of the music for series television won’t be involved in the selection or production of songs for the show.

TELEVISION/FILM DIFFERENCES There are several scoring requirements that are unique to television. Act ins and act outs When the stranger suddenly appears out of the darkness and the gun fires and the music comes up to an accented resolution, you can be sure the show is about to cut to a commercial break. The cues that separate the program content from the advertising messages are called act ins (to introduce the continuing show after a commercial break) and act outs (to close an act). Another term for act out is curtain, a more apt (though less often used) term, because these devices are completely theatrical in function, much like lowering the curtain between acts in the theater. The deliberate spotting of a cue to begin the first scene after a commercial break is rare these days. The decision about whether there will be specifically designed act outs is a matter of taste, with some television producers loving them and some hating them. In the cases where there is not a strong bias one way or the other, the composer can make what is probably the best compromise: use them at your discretion when they seem most suited to what has preceded. They will be dropped in dubbing if they are not needed. Bumpers Bumpers are short musical signatures used in conjunction with the graphic title card for a show. They are usually based on a short phrase or motif derived from the theme, and are typically either :05 or :07 long, including the reverb “ring off” after the orchestra cuts off

On the track

650

their last note. Almost all television shows require them, including movies-of-the-week and miniseries, depending on each broadcast company’s policy. The editor will tell the music editor or you which length is required. They are recorded once, and reprinted as many times as necessary to fulfill the network requirements of the show. It is a good idea to create a softer and louder version of the bumper for movies and miniseries to provide a choice in dubbing, in case the producer might like the idea of matching the outgoing mood of a scene with the incoming bumper. Stings A sting is the old radio term for a very short music cue of :05 to :10 seconds, that hits the action. They are not used much beyond comedy material, but will be spotted occasionally by producers who favor them. In a sitcom they are often disguised as a short contemporary bridge, but their function is similar (see Chapter 10). The producer You will need to be certain who is the authority regarding the use of music. You might find yourself working primarily with the executive producer, although established directors will often work with the composer.

Songs

651

VII SONGS

On the track

652

This page intentionally left blank.

Songs

653

23 MUSICALS AND PRERECORDING I literally laid out the four-and-a-half minutes of ‘I Sing the Body Electric’ in Fame for every single vocalist, for the dance break, for what became the a cappella section, for what became the orchestral coda. And it was a fairly thick orchestration. —Michael Gore

EVENTUALLY EVERY FILM COMPOSER encounters situations in which singers, dancers, or musicians perform on screen. These pose special problems; the sound is rarely recorded at the same time as the filming because it is almost impossible to get the highest quality picture and best sound recording simultaneously. Even if the obstacles to getting simultaneous great picture and sound could be overcome, it would still be very difficult to get the best musical and dramatic performances when recording during filming. The endless number of retakes needed to shoot different camera angles and to correct technical flaws makes it very unlikely that the musicians/actors would be able to keep giving the spirited peak performances that are so important. It’s also exorbitantly expensive, because the whole orchestra would have to be kept there for days of shooting to get the required combination of flawless lighting, camera focus, sound, and highenergy performance. There are three options available for recording a scene with on-screen music: prerecording (playback recording or prescoring); set-recording; and postrecording (or post-scoring). For the reasons already mentioned, whenever movies are made that include on-screen performances or dancing, whether it be music videos, musicians appearing in TV commercials, or full-blown film musicals, prerecording is almost always the option of choice. Set recording (simultaneous sound recording and photography) is occasionally used in order to achieve the most lifelike credibility, and for those ad lib musical situations where a singer talks the verse of a song, or when musicians invent new lines in jazz and rock that are difficult to mime convincingly during playback shooting. (Veteran actor Rex Harrison refused to do anything but set recording for most of his numbers in My Fair Lady [1964] which included very ‘conversational’ singing.) Postrecording, sometimes referred to as postscoring (recording the music after the picture is shot), offers the ability to upgrade the sound by rerecording the original actor, replacing the performance of the original actor with that of another (Marni Nixon’s voice replaced Audrey Hepburn’s in My Fair Lady and Natalie Wood’s in West Side Story [1961] and Bill Lee replaced Christopher Plummer’s vocals in The Sound of Music, 1965) or augmenting the accompaniment. Even though Rex Harrison insisted on “live” recording for his performances in My Fair Lady, there was still postscoring in which a

On the track

654

full orchestra replaced or sweetened the original instrumental track from the live (set) recording. This involves elaborate preparations so the conductor can “chase” the original piano track with a click track especially built to follow the live performance beat by beat no matter how much its tempo may have varied. Scenes like the ones in which Whoopie Goldberg sings with the choir in Sister Act (1992) and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993); Gene Hackman plays saxophone in The Conversation (1974), and Michael J.Fox plays guitar in Back to the Future (1985; see p. 353 for a technical description of this scene) require individual solutions to provide the on-screen music. These same three options are available for TV music specials and the annual awards presentations, to get the best musical performances, sound recording, and picture. A common variation used in these shows is to prerecord the instrumental and vocal backgrounds but shoot the vocalist live, thus avoiding a significant loss of credibility that occurs when a vocalist attempts to lip-sync during revealing tight close-ups. Power Planning Experienced film editors, music editors, recording engineers, and directors handle these problems by very disciplined planning of every musical move, dance step, and camera angle. Careful planning is especially important to the producers because any overrun can add immeasurably to an already costly project.

PRERECORDING (PRESCORING) In prerecording a vocal or dance number, it is critical that the tempo and interpretation be exactly right so that everything will work perfectly and naturally during the subsequent shooting of the sequence. This includes cinematic technical details like having enough time and space to make the right camera angles. Director Robert Wise recalls the dance scenes in West Side Story: “The music stage was right next to the rehearsal stage over at Goldwyn Studios where Jerry Robbins was rehearsing. When Johnny Green had his orchestra ready to record the ‘America’ number and he and Jerry had arrived at what they thought was the right tempo, Jerry brought the dancers in and had them rehearse while he made tempo comments. And they would dance to every take. Jerry of course is a stickler for that kind of thing. On Zorba we’ll do as much of that as we can but it won’t be quite that simple because we’re going to do the prescoring in Budapest and I’m sure we’re not going to bring the whole group of dancers there! Mike Kidd will be there of course, and probably one or two dancers and the principal actors, who will have to be there for the songs and whatever else they do.” Intonation As the late Gene Marks, music editor, pointed out, “One of the biggest pitfalls in prerecording is the intonation of the orchestra. If two cues are recorded maybe six months apart, one postscore and one prescore, and they have to segue one right into the other, the composer has to make absolutely certain that the pitch is identical between the two.”

Songs

655

Tracks recorded in Europe can bring a load of grief because the pitch can be noticeably different there. Development of Prerecording Methods The late composer John Green, head of the MGM music department from 1949 to 1958, was there when many of the prerecording methods were developed. He recalled working in New York with orchestrator Conrad Salinger, in the period around 1930, before playback recording was developed. They were making one of a number of motion picture overtures that were shown in movie theaters before features were run: “This overture to The Vagabond King was less than a five-minute piece and the session went on from eight o’clock in the evening until five o’clock in the morning! But before playback recording great compromises were made—principally with the sound and musical aesthetics, rather than the cinematic or photographic aspects. Music was really the stepchild. They were doing close-ups as well as cover shots. Many of these same problems were reincarnated in the days of live television. The advent of the playback made all sorts of choreographic possibilities. You could never have done the Busby Berkeley things without it. “But it introduced the problem of nuance. What do we do about rallentandi and accelerandi? That’s when we got the cue click.” The Cue Click Prerecording a variable tempo in the thirties was not too different from what might be done today, except that digital technology has greatly facilitated click preparation. For a vocal number in a classic musical, the singer and orchestra recorded the song, using a click film loop as the metronome. From that recording a cue track was dubbed with audible click for use as playback recording for the shooting stage. When the music ritarded to a fermata, the click of course stopped, but two warning clicks were added just before the note that followed the fermata, returning it to tempo. In Green’s words, “By experimentation we found how far apart the clicks should be spread in terms of the human mind and ear. When the singer was in front of the camera and heard these two beats she could come in correctly with the playback recording. On the set, the sound department picked up a guide track [of her actual singing during the shooting]. When you finally got in the cutting room, the music editor had to deal with three tracks (running on his triple-headed Moviola with the picture of that scene) for each camera angle: (1) the original track from the recording stage (with full orchestra); (2) the clicked version of the original track; and (3) the guide track picked up on the shooting stage (including all the sounds from the shooting stage, and lousy sound). From here the music editor reconciled the discrepancies by sliding the music tracks, or if that ultimately failed, by editing picture.” An American in Paris Prerecording can become remarkably complex when a scene includes talking, singing, piano playing, dancing, and orchestral accompaniment as happened during “By Strauss,”

On the track

656

the first trio in American in Paris (1951) with Oscar Levant at the piano and Gene Kelly singing. It ultimately evolves into a sextet with everyone dancing. Green was co-music director with Saul Chaplin, and conducted all orchestra sessions. He recalls: “That was all prerecorded. We did it on the recording stage as you heard it. What we had to do with that number was to record the piano track with Oscar first; Oscar did not play to click, he played it with me conducting, fermatas and all. We then had to click the piano track for me. “We had been rehearsing for weeks. The singers were brought in. The clicks were fed to me and to Saul Chaplin while they were recording. Then came the orchestra. The fermati were handled with conventional cue clicks, not tempo clicks. We did sectionalize it, so that the big orchestra section where they all get up and waltz is a separate section. Wherever there was singing, that was cue clicked. Those places where the orchestra played with the piano and they sang, we did it all together. It was a very long recording. “To try out the takes, we went down to the set but we had to do it by the sections (with proper overlaps). So the basic methods applied here. The only problem was that we had a guy singing and playing the piano at the same time. “When the vocalists were being shot they were hearing the orchestra combined with the prerecorded piano track with click. When Oscar spoke, that was recorded on the shooting stage. It was a chore to match the sound but not a problem. When we got into the dubbing room, if there was a problem we fixed it with each cue. We had all the finest equipment. “All the taps on the songs and dances were postrecorded, whether it was Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly, whoever.”

PRERECORDING GREASE AND FAME The evolution of commercial recording has greatly raised public expectations. Superior equipment has been a great help, but the basic needs of planning prerecording, set recording, and postrecording still exist. It is not the composer/music director’s task to make all these decisions, but close cooperation with the choreographer, music editor, songwriters, and director is required to solve the many different situations that can arise. Grease Editor John Burnett notes the changes that had occurred by the mid-eighties: “Years ago everything was very disciplined—whether it was vocals, or dance and instrumental, or vocal and instrumental, everything was done to playback. All of the performers, whether they were actors or dancers or participants in the movie, were rehearsed by choreographers. You coded your music track with a music number and everything that was shot was done from the beginning to bar such and such. Now—you take something like Grease (1978)—there is no discipline whatsoever. They don’t have everything planned to the beat, the bar, the note, the rest, whatever. They make a playback. But after the first or second take, they panic—start coming up with ideas. By the time they get finished with these dancers they find one very long phrase or section of the number that

Songs

657

has a very good beat and they end up playing that same thing over through the whole number. So basically when you get back, you throw the whole thing out and do the music again. “On Grease, we would go back and make those adjustments and we’d make the track sound as exciting as we could from the temp track that we had. When we did this, we’d bring the people up to see the sequence. They would sit there and say, ‘We don’t know how you did it—it’s wonderful. Yes, we know we’ll have to rerecord. What a great guy.’ They were always extremely appreciative. Then the composer would totally rewrite [and rerecord].” Fame Composer Michael Gore spent over a year working on Fame (1980), an example of discipline, good planning, and execution. “I was hired about four months before production began. [Director] Alan Parker brought me on as a musical supervisor for the film. At that point he did not really know what he wanted in terms of music, but only knew that the music would be highly eclectic—classical, pop, gospel, rock ‘n’ roll, etc. “We planned out the numbers together. The script had not been blueprinted with actual musical sequences. We spent time together trying to figure out where those songs would be (before the shooting). The ones that had to be prerecorded—those that would be sung on screen—had to be done before the shooting. It was pretty close. “Alan Parker did not consider Fame a musical. He never really wanted to have people just burst into song. Even if it was a thin excuse, he wanted to have one (like the loudspeaker on top of a taxi during the performance of ‘Fame,’ for example). When he asked me, ‘How can music start, but not really start?’ I said, ‘The only thing I can think of is a jam, where one person starts, and another begins, and so on.’ By the end of that day we had set the ‘Hot Lunch Jam’ and Alan had laid out all the shots—which instruments and which kids. Then I went into the studio and did a basic track with some session guys in New York to hear what it was going to sound like. I took the track home, and it didn’t work. We decided that the playing was too good, too polished. Basically the edges were so rounded and smooth that it lost a great deal of excitement—it didn’t feel like a jam. “As a result I went in three nights later and worked with the kids in the high school [New York High School of Music and Art, and the Performing Arts High School]. It was a phenomenally talented group—we were extremely lucky. We took them into a session with just a boom mic to get a very rough demo. We laid it out with everybody there and it had a terrific sound. So I took about 25 kids into a New York studio and we did the entire thing live (without tracking, with about four or five takes). I then did a pass with all the singers doing their vocals on it, and within that pass we developed a lot of crowd noise— at times they were singing, at times they were talking. Of course in the final film with ADR looping they ended up putting more crowd noises in. “That track is not locked on a click track. One can feel that the track gets faster, and I think that’s wonderful—it adds to the excitement of the piece. That was a deliberate decision, because I felt that on click we would not be able to keep the spontaneity of the jam—people would be following the click.

On the track

658

“Alan was extremely talented. As a director he truly understood music. He knew exactly what he wanted. The movie that finally emerged was very close to the movie he had in his mind at the beginning of it. “Where he developed a scene and needed various angle shots, we almost always prerecorded. When he wanted to pick up a shot of somebody playing a cello or a shot of somebody playing the violin, and he wasn’t planning on intercutting it with other shots, we occasionally would do it live. “Putting together the full orchestra plus rock rhythm section for ‘I Sing the Body Electric’ was technically handled by first laying out the number. We were well into shooting and we still didn’t know what the end of the movie was going to be. In fact, Alan originally intended to use a pre-existing song that he was fond of. Lyricist Dean Pitchford and I went away and wrote ‘I Sing the Body Electric.’ We orchestrated the number—in terms of images and singers—for what we had, including the principals. “We laid it down with piano, bass, and drums (without click), with studio guys in New York; then I put on all the vocals. Once I knew we had the vocals the way that we wanted them (meaning the principal vocals and also what would become the choir later on), I started to build the track. We then put on the rest of the rhythm section, we put on the strings, we put on the brass. I filled out the orchestra, and we had one section just for the gospel choir. By that time we were on 48 tracks. Alan hadn’t shot the scene yet, so he needed the freedom to do a close-up of a flute player and have the flute on its own track. We had to leave every option open. We would give them two or three vocals a bit above the orchestra, one with the vocals down, so different mono mixes to use on the shooting stage, one with the when they were filming the orchestra, that’s predominantly what you heard. In playback you really need to use mono so that wherever you are on the set, everybody hears exactly the same thing. “This piece, even when we did the piano, bass, drums, was charted within an inch of its life. The day of the prerecording, Irene Cara and Paul McCrane were shooting. I took Laura Dean (who is the girl who first sings the opening lines of ‘I Sing the Body Electric’) and she did the guide vocal from beginning to end. When I knew that we had the right tempo, we came in with each of the singers and had them record their actual part. You should know that we actually did this track about six weeks into shooting on a ten- or eleven-week schedule. We recorded the ‘Hot Lunch Jam’ on a Friday evening, and the shooting for that sequence began on Monday. We had maybe a week or so on ‘Body Electric.’ “As for click, there is something about recording to it which is great for certain kinds of numbers. For example, I think the dance numbers worked incredibly well and click gave them a really solid beat. For something that is more free-form—something that needs air and room to breathe—click just isn’t the solution. If you listen to ‘Body Electric,’ the track starts at one tempo where the vocals enter, and when it moves into the dance break it picks up a little bit. When it moves into the final gospel choir at the end, it picks up yet again. That’s part of music—you don’t conduct the Brahms Third to a click.”

POSTRECORDING (POSTSCORING)

Songs

659

Postscoring is often required of composers who are scoring nonmusical films. In That’s Life! (1986), Henry Mancini replaced all the dance band music at the end of the film, which was recorded live on the set, with postscoring. But postscoring can be an absolute necessity in some situations where musicians play on screen, especially if the on-camera musicians are in some way closely tied into the drama. The celebrated film They Shoot Horses Don’t They? (1969), which might not be regarded as a musical, nonetheless had formidable music-sync problems, because the musicians were always visible in the background. This very tragic drama about marathon dancing in the thirties required a credibility that would be lost if the on-screen musicians were out of sync with the soundtrack. John Green (functioning as associate producer and music director) spent the better part of a year working out the details of the music recording: “In preshooting rehearsals with the actors and cameras, orchestrator Al Woodbury and I were able, throughout the picture, to sit with [director] Sydney Pollack [and discuss the actual instruments that should appear in the background to fit the mood of the scene]. And we went into great detail. I remember his saying once, ‘I think it would be great, anywhere in these two pages, to see a trombone standing up there with a cup mute.’ “Al and I devised what we called melody/rhythm scores. We picked our tempos on an electronic metronome (in long sessions with Sydney). [For the shooting] everybody had the melody who was capable of playing it. We had to decide whether it was two-beat, four-beat, or waltzes, and how fast. To the degree that we dared prognosticate (in conference with Sydney) we used a red grease pencil on our melody/rhythm scores to indicate that saxes play, brass play, saxes stand up. Sydney had promised that he would stay in meter [when he edited], although he wouldn’t promise to complete whole phrases. On the shooting stage we had a piano. The actors, in order to feel the atmosphere, had to have some impression of what they were hearing, but their tracks had to be clean enough to be used [as the final dialogue tracks]. Randy Rayburn, the pianist, was so soft you could hardly hear him. He and the other pianist [who performed this function] were hearing variable click that speeded up since that was part of the essence of these derbies. “Then the entire picture was postrecorded! Incredible. How in God’s name did we do it? I cannot tell you what an impossible job that was. This was a highly sensitive, enormously melodramatic, heart-rending dramatic story. Nine out of ten frames you’re looking at a dance band—they’re playing all the time. Meanwhile in front of the bandstand a big dramatic scene to tear your heart out is being played by Jane Fonda and Bruce Dern. The pulse of the soundtrack is going on and you can see the bass player (and immediately see if he is playing between the beats you can hear). Normally in such a situation you loop the dialogue. But you couldn’t loop that dialogue in those soul-searing scenes. And God forbid if the pianist’s hands should be up in the air when you hear a piano being played.”

THE CLASSIC MUSICALS AND BEYOND Despite the advances in electronics, synchronization, and recording techniques, the methods developed for filming the great song-and-dance musicals of the thirties and

On the track

660

forties are mostly still applicable to today’s needs. Although we no longer have the steady flow of big Hollywood musicals to train our engineers, cameramen, songwriters, and performers, the following classic musicals are textbook examples of these techniques: Flying Down to Rio (1933), Naughty Marietta (1935), Rose Marie (1936), The Wizard of Oz (1939), Cabin in the Sky (1943), Kismet (1944), On The Town (1949), Show Boat and An American in Paris (1951), Singing in the Rain (1952), Kiss Me Kate (1953), Oklahoma and Guys and Dolls (1955), Carousel (1956), Pal Joey and The Pajama Game (1957), Porgy and Bess (1959), West Side Story (1961), and The Music Man (1962). The era is brilliantly summarized with many outstanding highlights in Jack Haley Jr.’s That’s Entertainment (1974), Saul Chaplin and Daniel Melnick’s That’s Entertainment II (1976), followed by That’s Dancing! (1985), and That’s Entertainment! III (1994). Since that time musicals have become less and less frequently produced, but there still were musicals like My Fair Lady (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), Camelot (1967), Funny Girl (1968), Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Cabaret (1972), Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), Tommy (1975), The Wiz (1978), Hair (1979), and A CHORUS LINE (1986). All of these have been adapted from Broadway or London musicals and have included important dancing routines as well as singing numbers. The film adaptation of the musical Chicago was released at the end of 2002 to deservedly great acclaim, spurring a renewed interest in this classic genre. The most influential original musicals have been those created by composer Alan Mencken for the Walt Disney Company. Collaborating at first with the late Howard Ashman, Mencken and Ashman created the appealing scores for The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991), the first animated film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Followed by Aladdin (1992), the songwriting team (with additional lyrics by Tim Rice) established a successful approach for animated musicals that has encouraged many others, including the notable The Lion King (1994, Elton John and Tim Rice) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996, Mencken and Stephen Schwartz). In addition we have seen a number of films in which music played a big role but which were not adaptations of Broadway musicals. Musically, the technical considerations are equivalent to those of a Broadway musical adaptation. These films include: The Entertainer (1960, with Laurence Olivier), the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help (1965), Alice’s Restaurant (1969), Gimme Shelter (with the Rolling Stones, 1970), Nashville (1975), Leadbelly and Bound for Glory (the Woody Guthrie story) (1976), New York, New York (1977), Saturday Night Fever (1977), All That Jazz (1979), The Coal Miner’s Daughter and Honeysuckle Rose (1980), Tender Mercies (1983), Flashdance and Staying Alive (1983), Cotton Club, Amadeus, and Prince’s Purple Rain (1984), and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), an outstanding example of musical integration in film. The release in 2001 of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! took the contemporary musical in a brand new direction, utilizing pre-existing pop and rock and roll standards as the score for his on-screen actors, who included Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. Though the music was adapted from pre-existing sources, the techniques relied upon to make this film work were the same tried and true methods as those used during the classic era of film musicals.

Songs

661

24 SONGS People don’t realize the power—both the contributive power and the detractive power—of songs in films. —Dean Pitchford, Lyricist

All the things that we’ve worked on come out of the film score, which I really think is the thing to do. —Will Jennings, Lyricist (regarding his collaboration with James Horner)

SONGS CAN BRING A great deal to the film experience. At best, a vocal will humanize the score, and can give the soundtrack either wit (“Ghostbusters,” 1984, words and music: Ray Parker Jr.) or warmth (“The Way We Were,” 1973, lyric: Alan and Marilyn Bergman; music: Marvin Hamlisch). The lyric can speak for the character (“My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic, 1998, lyric: Will Jennings; music: James Horner; Randy Newman’s “When She Loved Me” in Toy Story 2, 1999) or reflect an overview of the film. The right performance also can add authenticity to a film’s statement (as did the Spanish folk ensemble in Salvador, 1986, or Isaac Hayes in Shaft, 1971). The music for the film songs of the sixties and seventies was usually composed first, and then the lyrics were written to fit. Although there was some variation from that work method, especially when the songwriters were not scoring the film, this was the traditional way for film composers to work when they were composing both the score and the songs. The composer was chiefly concerned with creating his main theme for the score, and that melody became the “theme song.” Henry Mancini wrote the theme for Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) and then Johnny Mercer wrote the lyric; the song became “Moon River.” They wrote the title song for Days of Wine and Roses (1962) similarly. When Michel Legrand collaborated with Alan and Marilyn Bergman, he wrote the music first for virtually all of their songs (including “The Windmills of Your Mind” and “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?”). Marvin Hamlisch wrote the music first for “The Way We Were” (lyric by the Bergmans) and “Nobody Does It Better” (lyric by Carole Bayer Sager). Fred Karlin wrote the theme for The Sterile Cuckoo (1968), which became “Come Saturday Morning” when director Alan Pakula asked Dori Previn to add a lyric. “For All We Know,” written for Lovers and Other Strangers (1970), became a song once Robb Royer and James Griffin (members of the rock group Bread) added their lyric to Karlin’s song theme. In each case, although the assignment included writing a song for the film, the music was completed before the lyricists began writing, and few if any

On the track

662

changes were made in the music to accommodate the lyrics. Burt Bacharach and Hal David were an exception, comfortably tossing ideas back and forth in a collaborative manner, probably because Bacharach had a songwriting background and therefore approached each project from that point of view. The advantage to writing the music first is that the music will have been created specifically to satisfy the scoring requirements of the film, and therefore the song can be easily and effectively integrated into the score, sometimes playing under dialogue and sometimes in the clear. These songs rarely sound as though they have been arbitrarily added to the soundtrack; their use as score guarantees a more organic effect. Randy Newman works differently; he writes his songs as songs and then integrates his song themes into his scores whenever possible. “Where I can use it, I’ll use it. It isn’t like just playing it over and over. There’ll be chord changes that you can use, and you do something else with them, or motivic development.” In his scores for animated films such as Toy Story and a bug’s life, “Sometimes there isn’t an opportunity because they get in dramatic situations where you can’t hit a major chord for forty minutes.” The careful integration of song themes adds continuity and integrity to a score. If you don’t write the theme as a song first before using the music as an element in a score, there is the possibility that the resultant songs may not be idiomatic or particularly appropriate for the pop market. Although many film songs have become pop standards, there have been other times when the songs are not as idiomatic as they might be. This became a significant issue during the eighties, because filmmakers expected most film songs to be musically and lyrically idiomatic and designed for Top-40 airplay. The popular success of an instrumental theme with lyrics added became the exception. Today, film songs are often created by songwriters with commercial recording (and sometimes performance) backgrounds, not by film composers. While this has had a great impact on film songs and soundtracks, the prerequisites for a good film song remain the same. All the artistic criteria for a good song will be relevant to film songs. The film composer should appreciate the highest standards of excellence in song lyrics so he can understand the challenges of writing an outstanding lyric and thereby be prepared to collaborate most effectively with lyricists. He will need to be certain that the song expresses a tone and attitude consistent with the film. The big difference, then, between writing a film song and any other song (other than for theater) is in the creation of a lyric organic and relevant to the drama, and our discussion of film songs will therefore concentrate on the art and craft of film song lyrics.

THE FUNCTIONS OF A SONG Sometimes something’s missing from the film, and it needs your help. —Norman Gimbel, Lyricist

I will take a job when I feel that something that I write can make a difference.

Songs

663

—Dean Pitchford, Lyricist

In order to use a song effectively in a score, there must be space for that song on the soundtrack and a reason for its use. In Toy Story (1995), very specific moments were chosen for Randy Newman’s songs. “When Woody gets confused and disappointed about his situation,” says Newman, “and when much the same thing in a very different way happens to Buzz, we needed songs to convey the emotion that they couldn’t necessarily do without the music.” Playing just the right emotion is vital. “The song I first wrote for Buzz, ‘We Will Go Sailing,’ was slightly comedic. It said, ‘Made in Taiwan’ and things like that. It wasn’t a bad song, but what they wanted was a straight emo

Randy Newman. Photo by William Claxton. tional kind of song. Because, as they pointed out, and as I recognized when I scored the picture, the characters are adults—the toys are always adults. And when they feel an emotion it’s just like someone feeling it in a live action picture—you take it seriously. There’s no playing down to them.” Understanding the function of a song is critical to its successful integration into the film. Newman notes, “In the first song in Toy Story they wanted to emphasize that Woody

On the track

664

and the boy had a special bond and that they were the best of friends, which leads you to ‘You’ve Got a Friend in Me,’ and ‘When you’re in trouble I’ll be there.’ The generic kind of thing that people have been writing for a hundred years. But that was wanted, clearly. The function of that song was to tell them that, with some emotion that really only music can provide in some way.” Upon first being shown a film, lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman always ask themselves if there is a function for a song. “If the question is successfully answered—if we can find a real role for the song in the picture—that implies certain things,” says Marilyn Bergman. “We’re not going to repeat anything that’s happening visually in a kind of show and tell way, or repeat anything that’s in the screenplay unless we can add some other dimension or fly at another altitude.” Dean Pitchford looks at films in the same way. But not all films provide sequences where a song can play a significant role in the drama. “There are more and more cases where I am asked to do songs that are buried under action. I shy away from those because it doesn’t challenge me, it doesn’t celebrate the song, nor is one song any more or less appropriate than another.” When the scene looks right for a song, he says, “I’ll look at the sequence in a film and say, ‘Ah. I know what to say here. I know how the feeling should go, I know what the rhythm should be, I know what the orchestration should be.’ I think of all those things, too. I look at a sequence and I try to figure out, ‘Is this a piano and Rhodes ballad or is this a synthesizer, or is this rock and roll (naked guitars and drums); is this a black woman singing or is this a heavy metal group? What does this moment call for?’ “Sometimes I’ve been asked to look at a picture and give my opinion. And sometimes I’ve talked people out of doing a song, because a song would be expensive, it would roll over the final credits, it wouldn’t be much of a selling tool, and it wouldn’t reinforce the dramatic material.” When a song does feel right for a film sequence, it may be because the film can use the kind of help only a song can provide. As lyricist Norman Gimbel points out, “Sometimes the filmmakers feel that they need words, possibly to help set the film up. If the dramatic setup is a little soft or vague, a song can function over the main titles to create a mood and prepare you for the film.” Rarely these days, but occasionally, songwriters are required to create a song title that can become the title of the film as well. This is never the only function of a film song, but it can be important nevertheless. Because the filmmakers didn’t want the word “death” in their film’s title, Death of a Snow Queen became Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973) after Alan and Marilyn Bergman and Johnny Mandel wrote their title song for the film. And, again rarely, a songwriter will use the title of a film for the idea of the song and its title (“Vanilla Sky” [2001] by Paul McCartney is one example). Songwriters should always look for moments when the music, lyric, and performance can make a powerful emotional statement. When Marvin Hamlisch scored the ending of The Way We Were (1973), he recorded an instrumental version of the theme, not Streisand singing the Bergmans’ lyric. “I thought using the song would be tacky. At the preview, I noticed that people did not cry during the end titles. They were touched, but it wasn’t yet what I’d call a handkerchief film. And I went to the head of the music department, Jonie Taps, and I said, ‘Jonie, you have to let me rerecord the ending,

Songs

665

because I know that we’ve got a mistake here, and in my desire to be perfectly correct, I didn’t use my main gun, which would have been Barbra Streisand singing.’ And he allowed me to rerecord that wonderful moment when she touches his forehead. And then she sings, ‘Memories….’ And I tell you, the next preview that we had, they all cried.”

CONTENT So often people say, ‘That song sounds great,’ and they stick it in the movie and something’s happening on screen and something’s being sung about on the soundtrack and the two don’t mesh. —Dean Pitchford, Lyricist

On the stage, many of the songs are about what’s happening at the moment. On film, you just can’t do that. —Alan Bergman, Lyricist

I synthesize the character, I synthesize the scene. —Norman Gimbel, Lyricist

Creating the proper lyric statement for a film song is a fine art requiring considerable craft. Although the content of the lyric and the style of the song must match, the lyricist’s challenge is to conceive the content and then create a lyric that perfectly expresses that concept in an appropriate style. There are four basic approaches to crafting the lyrical content: (1) a direct statement with a conversational everyday text; (2) a more personal and often more poetic expression of the point of view of the character(s); (3) a more oblique statement, often using interesting images, usually expressing the character’s point of view; and (4) an overview statement. The film and the characters dictate the attitude and style of the lyric. Direct Lyric Statements If the characters are involved in situations that require straightforward talk, with no subtleties, then a simple, direct lyrical statement might be perfect. In Shaft (1971), Isaac Hayes was as direct as you can be, and even though there is imagery, it too is direct: Theme from Shaft Words and music: Isaac Hayes

[First line] Who’s the Black private dick

On the track

666

That’s a sex machine To all the chicks Shaft [Spoken by women] [Third line] Damn right Who’s the cat that won’t Cop out when there’s Danger all about Shaft [Spoken by women] Right on © 1971, 1972 & 1973 East/Memphis Music Corp. Copyright Assigned to Irving Music, Inc. (BMI) 1982. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Shaft is an African American private eye who tangles with a powerful racketeer. Even though the lyric specifically describes the title character, it is an appropriate set up for the film, especially given its strong performance by the songwriter. The Point of View of the Character(s) To write a lyric that gets inside the character requires “getting a sense of the film and what the character means to you,” says Norman Gimbel, “and what the character should say in an extended way, or what the vocal should say for the character at that moment.” Gimbel wrote the lyric, “Ready to Take a Chance Again” (for which Charles Fox then wrote the music) for Foul Play (1978). At the beginning of the film, Gloria (Goldie Hawn) is told by a friend that she should start taking some chances in life. Gloria says she’ll think about it, and then gets into her yellow Volkswagen. As she drives along the San Francisco cliffs, the song (performed by Barry Manilow) begins over the main titles. The words are conversational and from her point of view, but the treatment is full of ironies and surprises. “Ready to Take a Chance Again” Lyric: Norman Gimbel Music: Charles Fox

You remind me, I live in a shell, Safe from the past and doin’ okay, But not very well. The verse continues to develop toward this positive statement in the chorus.

Songs

667

And I’m ready to take a chance again, Ready to put my love on the line with you. Been living with nothing to show for it, You get what you get when you go for it. I’m ready to take a chance again, I’m ready to take a chance again with you. © 1979 by Ensign Music Corporation and Kamakazi Music Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Arthur (1981) is a romantic comedy about a rich alcoholic (Dudley Moore) who falls in love with a quirky but lovable shoplifter (Liza Minelli). The overall theme of the film is “love” because Moore is forced to choose between the shoplifter (whom he loves) and an arranged marriage without which he will be disinherited. The song, “Best That You Can Do,” is by Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager, Christopher Cross, and Peter Allen (performed by Cross on the soundtrack). It speaks directly from Arthur’s point of view, concluding that falling in love is the “best that you can do.” The first lines of the verse sum it up. “Best That You Can Do” Words and music: Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager, Christopher Cross and Peter Allen

Once in your life you find her Someone who turns your heart around and Next thing you know you’re closing down the town Throughout the verse, Arthur continues to ask himself, ‘What is happening to me?’ The verse ends with the lines:

Wonderin’ to yourself Hey! What have I found? © 1981 WB Music Corp., New Hidden Valley Music, Begonia Melodies, Inc., Unichappell Music, Inc., Pop n’ Roll Music, Woolnough Music and Irving Music, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. It is Arthur’s joyous speculation and his growing enlightenment that drives the film forward from beginning to end, and the song establishes this theme over the main titles. In An Officer and a Gentleman (1981), Zack (Richard Gere) enrolls in Naval Officer Candidate School to improve his life, and Paula (Debra Winger) seduces him in order to improve hers. They are both trying to free themselves of the past, and to raise themselves

On the track

668

up and beyond the present. “It was a working-class story, you see,” says lyricist Will Jennings. “The people from these dead-end lives who were trying to do better. That was the wrenching thing about the whole film, and this was their one shot at it. It’s about struggling, it’s about going from one place to another. And there’s a spiritual element, of course. It’s a hymn, so to speak.” In the chorus, Will Jenning’s lyric for “Up Where We Belong” (music by Jack Nitzsche and Buffy Sainte-Marie, performed by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes) captures the ambition of both characters, while at the same time tying them together as a couple. “Up Where We Belong” Lyric: Will Jennings Music: Jack Nitzsche and Buffy Sainte-Marie

Love lift us up where we belong Where the eagles cry On a mountain high Love lift us up where we belong Far from the world we know Up where the clear winds blow © 1982 by Famous Music Corporation and Ensign Music Corporation. Barbra Streisand’s voice speaks for both herself and Robert Redford as she sings Alan and Marilyn Bergman’s lyric for the title song for The Way We Were (1973). By focusing their lyric on the concept of remembrance, the Bergman’s are reflecting Katie’s (Streisand’s) wish in the film that her relationship with Hubbell (Redford) could be as she remembers it once was. From the first word, “Mem’ries,” the lyric is looking back through the eyes of Katie at “the way we were.” She expresses an uncertainty about her recollections, wondering (in the bridge), “Has time rewritten ev’ry line?” The last stanza reflects a love lost, but treasured. “The Way We Were” Lyric: Alan and Marilyn Bergman Music: Marvin Hamlisch

Mem’ries may be beautiful and yet, What’s too painful to remember We simply choose to forget. So it’s the laughter we will remember Whenever we remember the way we were, The way we were.

Songs

669

© 1973 by Colgems-EMI Music Inc. Hollywood, CA. All rights reserved. Used by permission. There is a very personal moment in Toy Story 2 (1999) when Jessie, the cowgirl doll, explains to Woody, the cowboy doll, how it felt to be loved by a child. With Randy Newman’s song, it becomes an extremely touching moment, and his lyric gives Jessie’s statement not only a specific emotionality, but also a universal one. “When She Loved Me” Music and Lyric: Randy Newman

[Jessie] When somebody loved me Everything was beautiful; Every hour we spent together Lives within my heart. Newman’s lyric goes on to describe how they were there for each other, and then recalls how it was after the child’s love had faded only to be briefly revived.

Lonely and forgotten, Never thought she’d look my way, And she smiled at me and held me Just like she used to do. © 1995 Walt Disney Music Company and Pixar Talking Pictures. All rights reserved. Used by permission. As personal a statement as this is for Jessie (and Woody), this song also works in the most general way to express emotions anyone can relate to. “The really surprising thing for me,” says Newman, “is the fact that very little kids stayed still for ‘When Somebody Loved Me.’ It’s slow, and it’s emotional, and sort of grown-up emotional. The doll talking about how once she was loved and then she wasn’t, and the difference between it. It was a bit of a risk for them to take. They’re always afraid of slowing things down and losing the kids but they did it and I wrote something that must have worked or the kids would have been running up the aisle.” Newman’s song for Monsters, Inc. (2001) gave voice to the inner feelings of the two main characters, a big green monster name Sulley (voiced by John Goodman), and a small one named Mike (Billy Crystal), described as a “punky little eyeball” in the lyric. Newman looked for a way to express the “special kind of synergistic friendship” these two had, “where the one needs the other to survive and to be happy,” he says. “It’s never expressed. They’re two guys and they would never say that to each other necessarily, but

On the track

670

they can sing it outside the picture. You never exactly see it, particularly Mike is always complaining and sort of feisty.” Sung as a duet, with solos for each, the entire lyric sums up their relationship. The following lines are from the bridge, which they sing as a duet. “If I Didn’t Have You” Music and Lyric: Randy Newman

[Sculley and Mike] You and me together That’s how it always should be, One without the other Don’t mean nothin’ to me. Later, in a solo, Mike confides:

[Mike] Hey, I never told you this, Sometimes I get a little blue, I wouldn’t have nothin’ If I didn’t have you. © 2001 Walt Disney Music Company and Pixar Talking Pictures. All rights reserved. Used by permission. A film will always be the central inspiration for a good film song, but the songwriters do bring other experiences to bear when they are writing. When James Horner asked Will Jennings to write the lyric for his Titanic theme, he described the entire story to Jennings in detail. A complete rough cut of the film wasn’t available, but Jennings had a clear picture of the film in his mind after their first meeting. “The thing I was taken with as a point-of-view character was Rose, the centenarian. And imagining the whole thing from her point of view, since it’s at the end of the film and we’d be looking back, in a sense the whole film is looking back from her point of view.” He remembered a powerful experience he had several years earlier, when he met Beatrice Wood after a premiere of a film about her life and her sculpting. She was then over a hundred years old. “When she touched my hand, I had such a feeling of strength, just something out of the earth. A vitality. I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life. And it stayed with me. And so, in the course of James telling me about Rose, Beatrice Wood came to my mind.” Of course, as he points out, there was also “that beautiful haunting theme, very understated but powerful.” Jennings wrote the lyric so that it expresses the point of view of a person whose true love is gone and yet will continue to live in her heart forever. “My Heart Will Go On”

Songs

671

Lyric: Will Jennings Music: James Horner

Ev’ry night in my dreams I see you, I feel you, that is how I know you go on. Their love transcends both time, and life and death.

Near, far, wherever you are, I believe that the heart does go on. © 1997 by Famous Music Corporation, Ensign Music Corporation, TCF Music Publishing, Inc., Fox Film Music Corporation and Blue Sky Rider Songs. All rights for Blue Ridge Rider Songs administered by Irving Music, Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. An Oblique Statement Oblique lyrical statements are frequently from a character’s point of view, but with a less obvious connection. Sometimes they rely on well-crafted imagery for their expression. For The Thomas Crown Affair (a 1968 film starring Steve McQueen as a millionaire bank robber and Faye Dunaway as an insurance investigator determined to catch him), director Norman Jewison knew he wanted a song when he shot the sequence with McQueen in a glider. “He wanted us to write a song that would underline the anxiety that the character was feeling at that moment,” says Alan Bergman. “When we first saw that sequence,” Marilyn continues, “[the Beatles’] ‘Strawberry Fields’ was on the temp track. The only other direction Jewison gave was that he wanted no plot, no character, nothing specific. He just wanted the audience to feel that this was a guy who’s skin was too tight for him. So we knew we were dealing with some kind of mind trip.” “If we had written a song about flying, who cares—you’re seeing it,” adds Alan. As the Bergman’s began to work on a concept for their lyric, they realized that “anxiety is a circular emotion.” “It feeds on itself,” explains Marilyn. “And in this case,” Alan says, “the style of that movie was fragmented. There were a lot of images going on simultaneously—split screen, different stages of a robbery were going on in four or five different squares on the screen. So we wrote a fragmented lyric.” “The Windmills of Your Mind” Lyric: Alan and Marilyn Bergman Music: Michel Legrand

Round, like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel,

On the track

672

Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel The imagery of circular motion continues to the end.

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face, And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find In the Windmills of Your Mind. © 1968 United Artists Music Corp. Rights assigned to SBK Catalogue Partnership. All rights controlled by SBK U Catalog Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. The Overview Lyric Whether or not the lyric comes from a character’s point of view, it may also represent an overview of the dramatic theme of the film or some other clear overview statement. Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager collaborated on the song for the James Bond movie, The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Hamlisch scored the film, and in planning out the score, said to Sager, “I want something that’s double entendre, and I want something that’s not coming out like ‘Goldfinger.’” He explains: “I didn’t want to come on big. I wanted to come, ‘Hi, how are ya,’ through the back door gently. And I had the first two bars, and said, ‘From there is where I want to go. I want to start out with this minuet.’ We knew we wanted a woman to sing it. It was all clear what it was going to have to be, but we didn’t know what it was until Carole wrote the lyric.” Sager wrote a double entendre lyric called “Nobody Does It Better” (performed by Carly Simon) that speaks for one woman or all women, and can also refer to Bond’s general expertise as a professional spy—the best in the business. The arrangement starts with the chorus. “Nobody Does it Better” (From The Spy Who Loved Me) Lyric: Carole Bayer Sager Music: Marvin Hamlisch

Nobody does it better Makes me feel sad for the rest Nobody does it half as good as you Baby you’re the best.

Songs

673

© 1977 Danjaq S.A. All rights controlled by United Artists Music Corp. Inc. and Unart Music Corporation assigned to SBK Catalogue Partnership. All rights administered by SBK U Catalog and SBK Unart Catalog. I—M—A. Although the remainder of the lyric gets even more specifically personal (and sexual), the dual meaning of the above four lines helps carry the overview idea through the song. In his lyric for the title song for Fame (1980; music by Michael Gore, performed by Irene Cara), Dean Pitchford expresses the viewpoint of every student in the film, and therefore the overview of the drama as well. In the verses he personalizes the lyric, but it could be any one of the characters speaking. “Fame” Lyric: Dean Pitchford Music: Michael Gore

Baby, look at me And tell me what you see You ain’t seen the best of me yet Give me time, I’ll make you forget the rest. The verses end with the phrase, “Remember my name,” leading into the chorus, which begins:

FAME I’m gonna live forever I’m gonna learn how to fly HIGH I feel it comin’ together People will see me and cry The song ends with the lines:

FAME I’m gonna live forever Baby, remember my name. © 1980 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. All rights assigned to SBK Catalogue Partnership. All rights administered by SBK Affiliated Catalog Inc. I—M—A. In Norma Rae (1979) Sally Field becomes the voice of her fellow workers in a southern textile factory, so it is appropriate that Norman Gimbel’s lyric for “It Goes Like It Goes” (music by David Shire, performed by Jennifer Warnes) speaks for her and also for the other workers. There is a stoicism in the lyric’s philosophy that Field eventually outgrows. But as an overview, it paints the picture of the traditional workers, accepting

On the track

674

life as they know it. This idea is clear from the first line of the verse. “It Goes Like It Goes” Lyric: Norman Gimbel Music: David Shire

Ain’t no miracle bein’ born, People doin’ it ev’ry day. The chorus continues this attitude, but allows room for hope as well.

So it goes like it goes, Like the river flows, And time it rolls right on. And maybe what’s good Gets a little bit better, And maybe what’s bad gets gone. © 1979 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Same Song, Different Meaning Some films are structured so that a double use of the song is desirable, once at the beginning or in the first half of the film, and one or more times later in the film. Because the characters and the story have developed over the course of the film, it is typical for the song to take on a new and often deeper meaning at the end. Writer-director Richard Brooks planned on this kind of emotional transformation of a song when he wrote his script for The Happy Ending (1969). “The first time,” says Alan Bergman, “you hear it as a proposal of marriage, a real love song. And later on he wanted to use the song again, not change one word, and hear the irony at that point.” Marilyn adds, “Sixteen years later, when this woman’s life is falling apart and she walks into a bar and puts a quarter into the jukebox and selects the identical song, it now means something entirely different to the audience.” The song, with music by Michel Legrand, became “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” and the title itself is an ironic question to ask of a woman whose life is falling apart. The second use is particularly poignant in that context. “The Way We Were” is also used in this way, which contributes to its added impact at the end of the film.

SONGWRITING COLLABORATION When you hear a melody that feels right for a particular place in a film, it somehow evokes the right vocabulary.

Songs

675

—Marilyn Bergman, Lyricist

A lyric is half of something. And it gets its life from the music. But you put a good lyric with good music and it becomes a great song. —Dean Pitchford, Lyricist

The challenge of lyricist and composer collaborating on a film song is compounded by the intricacies of writing for a specific film sequence. A true collaboration benefits from getting the greatest possible input from all the creators. Will Jennings has written lyrics for a number of film themes by James Horner. “The way we almost always work is I go over to his place and he tells me about the film and then plays me the music. We get into the text of the thing, and I usually start getting ideas right away and then I start sketching. Sometimes I get things that I will keep all the way through and then I go back home and work till I get it.” Jennings likes to have two weeks to finish his lyric, and then he returns to Horner’s studio and sings it for him. “If we feel revisions are needed,” Jennings adds, “we revise. And we usually get it done by that second meeting. He plays. I stand up and sing like a boid.” When Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford collaborated on “Fame,” they discussed the song’s function in depth, and what it might say. “I came to Michael with a bunch of ideas,” says Pitchford, “and we whittled them down, and I began to craft a lyric. And I spent probably three weeks writing a lyric that was punchy and potent and had all kinds of zing to it. And then Michael called me a few days after I had given it to him, and said, ‘I’ve got something. You ought to come hear this.’ And when he played me the verse of what eventually became ‘Fame,’ I said, That’s wonderful! But I don’t see how that fits with the lyric.’ And he said, ‘Oh, it doesn’t.’ So I said, ‘Okay…Well, you still have to write the chorus. Please try to make the chorus work with this chorus lyric.’ “And he called me back the next day, and he said, ‘I’ve got the chorus.’ And I went over and sure enough, he did. He had the ‘Fame—I’m going to live forever’ music, but it didn’t fit the original lyric at all.” Pitchford doesn’t find this disconcerting anymore. “At first I used to kick and scream and then eventually I calmed down to the point where that is our pattern for working. And I understand that and it helps me clarify my thinking about a song. It gets me into a second level. The first level lyric is a first-time take. It has energy and it has a rhythmic feel to it. But then when he takes off from that and writes, and then I write to his music, I get real deeply into the song. Usually my original lines don’t fit anymore. I’ll use some of the sense of it, but there’s something in me that won’t let me repeat myself, and so usually I end up scrapping the whole thing and going at his melody with a fresh approach.” Having a Rhythmic Framework It is very helpful for a lyricist to have a strong rhythmic concept for his lyric if he writes the words first. Pitchford says he always has a rhythm pattern in mind. “I can always do the drum pattern for my collaborator if I do the lyric first.”

On the track

676

Using Role Models Sometimes a writer will use a role model just to get started. “I usually walk in with a dummy melody and sing a rhythm or something,” says Gimbel. “Not with everybody. Most of the guys won’t sit still for it. Sometimes I come to Charles Fox with a whole rhythm, a whole hook with my one continuing melody that he hears for years afterward. He’s got to shut that out and just get the bones of the trick. Sometimes I have a little syncopated trick.” The Bergmans begin with a prototypical song as a way of getting everybody on the same wavelength. “And even for oneself, to zero in on the flavor,” says Marilyn. Some songwriters have difficulty working with role models, though. “Sometimes I don’t let my collaborator know what the role model was,” says Pitchford. “Sometimes I just tell him the gene pool that we’re trying to draw from.” If the new song isn’t written yet, the role model song may be used during production instead of prerecording for playback for dance numbers. Michael Gore used “Bad Girls” performed by Donna Summer for the playback track for the “Fame” sequence. “I had chosen the number and set it up on a click,” says Gore. The decision was very significant, because it determined a great deal about the final song that would eventually become “Fame.” “That song has a great deal to do with the way people look in the scene when they’re dancing,” says Pitchford. “People move in a certain way to one kind of a bass line and not to another. Also, in choosing the Donna Summer record, knowing that we were going to replace it with a song sung by Irene Cara, we were acknowledging that we were going to get a female with a soulful voice, singing an up-tempo dance record with a very strong beat. You start painting yourself into a corner with your role models, and that’s why they are very important decisions.” Collaboration When Alan and Marilyn Bergman work with Michel Legrand, they usually have their choice of melodies—sometimes as many as twelve or fifteen. “For ‘Windmills,’” says Alan, “he wrote seven or eight melodies.” “In that case,” Marilyn remembers, “we finally said, ‘Let’s sleep on it.’ The one we ultimately arrived at—all three of us—the next morning, was the one that seemed least likely the night before. “In discussing the concept, because of his French and our English, we would speak in terms of abstractions, in terms of colors, or things that had nothing to do with the picture, like the times of day, the seasons. Or we would give him a prose paragraph totally unrelated to what the lyric would eventually say.” When the collaboration is this comfortable, surprising results can occur. Legrand had written many melodies for The Happy Ending. “Sometimes complete melodies,” says Marilyn, “sometimes just starts, but all of them wonderful. But none of them were really right and he knew it and we knew it. And one of us said to him, ‘What happens if the first line of the song is, ‘What are you doing the rest of your life?’ And he was sitting at the piano, and he said, ‘What are you doing…I like that’ and he punched, thank God, the cassette player, and said, ‘You mean like this?’ And he played the whole melody from beginning to end.” The Bergmans and Legrand may be an exception. Norman Gimbel has noticed that

Songs

677

very often the traditional film composers are not used to truly collaborating on songs. “Most of the film scorers really satisfy their own needs. They write songs, but they are not songwriters. So you come to the process a little like a stepchild and it’s rare when they can really turn away from film scoring and become a songwriter and sit and generate that kind of heat and comfort and collaborative spirit. They have their own problems, they have their own scenes and footage and clicks and things to do and they would probably write better songs if they were able to collaborate with the lyric writer more, but they usually write themes. Piano themes that really basically are not vocal enough to be great songs. They don’t write for the throat, they’re writing for the keyboard. Words and music together do not necessarily make a song. A song is a song—a song has to be sung.” He points out that Charles Fox prefers to have him write the lyric first, and is consequently much more collaborative than most film composers, who don’t have a songwriting background.

SYNCING THE LYRIC TO THE VISUALS One of the cardinal sins is the repetition of what you’re seeing, the telling of what you already know. —Marilyn Bergman, Lyricist

Usually you will want to avoid any direct syncing of the lyric with the visual images. “The most powerful things in the film are the images on the screen,” says Marilyn Bergman. “Nothing you do should try to repeat those images—you’re going to take second place.” The circular images in “Windmills” reinforced and supported the symbolic images on the screen (and in McQueen’s psyche) but they didn’t repeat them (there weren’t any windmills on screen). When the coincidence of verbal and visual imagery occurs, the Bergmans suggest a slight change in the editing to avoid the duplication, or they may rework the line, if possible. “In The Way We Were” Marilyn says, “both Alan and I wince and look away from the screen every time the words ‘watercolor memories’ hit; at that point there’s a cut to a river with people rowing. Nobody else may notice it, but we do. Sydney Pollack moved it a few frames but it is still too close for our comfort.” “Near the end of ‘Windmills,’ says Alan,” there’s a line, ‘When you knew that it was over you are suddenly aware, That the autumn leaves are turning to the color of her hair.’ And at that moment, you’re watching the glider and the camera moves in on a woman waiting for McQueen, and you see her auburn colored hair. “We didn’t know that when we wrote the song,” Marilyn says, “because that cut wasn’t in the original version.” “But that drove us mad,” Alan adds. It must be added that in broad comedy, anything goes, and in films like The Revenge of the Nerds (1984) the obvious or outrageous coincidence of words, music, and film is effective.

On the track

678

REWRITING, OR WRITING ANOTHER SONG A certain amount of rewriting is part of the songwriting process. Often the songwriters impose a great deal of discipline in their own rewriting prior to anybody else hearing their song. But when the filmmakers hear a song, they may request changes in either the lyric or even the entire song. “You have to be willing to take a few shots,” says Gimbel. “If you write something and you love it and they don’t feel it’s right, you should be prepared to do another one. And if you do another one and that isn’t right, maybe you would have enough juice to do another one. If you don’t, then everybody will agree— you’re not getting it. It could be your fault—you’re just not grabbing it right or you’re not delivering—and the next movie you do could be the next Academy Award song. It’s one of those things. Like a baseball hitter can be hitting .300 and then the next season he’s down to .210. A smart producer will let you try. He’s buying you, essentially, your point of view and your skill.” The late Henry Mancini reiterated Gimbel’s point that songwriters often have to be willing to start afresh when their material isn’t working for the film. One of the songs Mancini and Leslie Bricusse wrote for Victor/Victoria (1982)—“You and Me”—was the “second round choice” for the duet between Robert Preston and Julie Andrews. “We did one,” Mancini said, “and they rehearsed it in London and called Leslie and me and said, That didn’t seem to work.’ And believe me, when someone says that to you, forget it. It’s a dead issue. Don’t try to put Band-Aids on it. Start something new. Take a hundred-andeighty-degree turn. Because there’s nothing worse than trying to salvage something that the people don’t like in the first place.” Mancini offered this advice about dealing with your emotional reaction to this professional rejection: “I don’t want to be sanguine about it, but I’ve come to the point now where, when someone says that to me I can completely cut it off and not think about it. I say, ‘Alright, I got my kicks doing that.’” And he let it go and went on to the next challenge. Sometimes everyone loves the song, but you still have to write another one. The Oscarwinning “It Goes Like It Goes” from Norma Rae was the second song David Shire and Norman Gimbel wrote for the film. Shire explains: “Originally, the producers and director [Marty Ritt] had felt that Waylon Jennings, who was hot at the time, was really a good sound for the title song. So they went after him, and Norman and I wrote a Waylon Jennings song. And we made a demo of it. And, with only a week or two to go, it turned out that Waylon Jennings was unavailable. And then we thought, ‘Well, maybe the singing voice should be female and more the sound of Norma herself, rather than a narrative ballad about Norma.’ So we had about a week to do a whole different concept.”

DEMONSTRATING THE SONG If the film song is based on an important theme in the score and that theme has been written before the lyric, then the composer might have played the theme for the filmmakers before the song is finished. Otherwise, songwriters think of their songs as being incomplete without both melody and lyric. “When I first began writing lyrics,” says

Songs

679

Dean Pitchford, “I would recite my lyrics for anybody at the drop of a hat. And eventually what I realized is that a lyric is not anything on its own. On a piece of paper a lyric that has no melody to it will read inane 98 percent of the time. Especially if you are working real tightly with the music. “My lyrics have become shorter, and the lines more compressed, which is why every single syllable has to count. And as a result I’ve become very protective about the lyric, and I won’t even write them into my scripts. Most of the time I just describe the tone of a song in the script. Because I find that lyrics read like Hallmark cards. A good lyric with good music becomes a great song, whereas a good lyric on its own is just—good.” Presenting the Song to the Filmmakers You need a great demo to sell a song for a motion picture. Most songs are selected for inclusion in a film (especially if there will be a soundtrack album) on the basis of a demo. Many times your song will be competing against countless others, and you won’t have the opportunity to say to the director, “Wait ‘till you hear the artist singing it.” The demo is a sales tool, and should be approached from that point of view. Even if you have been specifically hired to write a song for the film, it is wise to record a demo as close to “master quality” as possible. If the song is in the film, this demo will be used to present the song to potential artists, and it may be cut into the work print track as temp track until the final version replaces it. Pitchford explains the major risk involved with making a demo: “Because the demo aspires to be the record, if not all the values are there, you can screw yourself. Because in playing it for somebody, they think they’re hearing the record and it’s either there or not. There’s no room for their imaginations to work.” Even artists typically respond to what they hear in such cases, not to the song’s potential. There are always exceptions. There was no demo of “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic. Horner went to Las Vegas and met with Celine Dion and sang it for her in person. “In his piping choir boy’s voice,” says lyricist Will Jennings, “playing an out-oftune piano.” She and her husband/manager loved it, so they met in New York a few days later and Dion recorded her vocal, overdubbing the orchestral track Horner had recorded during his scoring sessions. That version became the “demo” used to convince director James Cameron that the song should be in the picture, at the beginning of the End Credits. “He had been fairly adamant early on about not wanting a song,” Jennings says. “He could have said no and that would have been it. But he loved it.”

THE ARTIST You can’t just think in terms of the lyric. I think of the identity of the people who are singing it and how they reinforce what the picture is all about. —Dean Pitchford, Lyricist

Whether the vocalist is going to be a studio singer working for SAG minimum scale or

On the track

680

this year’s Grammy winner, you still must “cast” the right voice and style for the song in the context of the film. “The worst thing,” said Henry Mancini, “is to go to a movie and watch the whole picture and then have the wrong voice come in [singing the song]. And it’s such a nice feeling when you have the right sound.” To get the “right” sound for “Through the Looking Glass,” which Mancini wrote with Leslie Bricusse for That’s Life! (1986), he suggested Tony Bennett “because of the maturity of his voice, and the slight empathy I think that his voice had with the character of Jack Lemmon. It’s set off at the beginning when Lemmon sits down and plays the piano. So you know he has some kind of musicality. And in a strange way, at the end of the picture, it kind of pays off. And the voice doesn’t shock you.” To further match the vocal quality and style of presentation with the central character, they decided not to do any kind of R&B or rhythmic treatment of the song, letting the rhythm be very laid back. If the lyric has been created from a character’s point of view, you will want the vocalist to come from the feeling of the character: Jennifer Warnes functioned this way for Sally Field in Norma Rae; Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes functioned this way for Richard Gere and Debra Winger in An Officer and a Gentleman; Barbra Streisand functioned this way for herself in The Way We Were; and even though the lyric was third person, Isaac Hayes spoke for Richard Roundtree’s title characterization in Shaft. The question to ask is, “Can I hear this artist singing a statement for the character?” In overview songs, the style of the vocal becomes the central issue. The title song for Ghostbusters is a third-person narrative statement about the Ghostbusters, so the upbeat attitude of the vocal (and the arrangement) became a key element contributing to its success. Signing Successful Artists When the producer and the studio invest in a film song, they usually want to attract a commercially successful artist to sing it. Although the songwriters will often participate in discussions concerning the most appropriate artist for a particular song, the business decisions will not be theirs. Getting the artist to agree to sing the song is not easy, especially with so many song-oriented soundtracks. Artists may also want to see the film to be sure they want to be associated with it. But there is a much better chance of attracting a major artist if the song is prominently featured in the film. “It doesn’t flatter an artist,” says Pitchford, “to show them some footage and say, ‘Listen, we need a song to put on the car radio while they’re talking and driving down the street.’” The artists’ recording and release schedules play an important role in determining their availability. “We’re usually talking about projects months in advance,” Gary LeMel, president, Worldwide Music, Warner Bros. Pictures, explains. “If I want a particular artist I have to know that he will not have a record in the marketplace when my film is released or he won’t work for me. Because they’re not going to put out my record while his record is out there.” LeMel says that record companies and artists usually know about their release schedules twelve months in advance. But no one can predict what will happen to an album when it is released; whether it will have one hit single or three hit singles (with each one on the air for about three months). So schedule projection is almost impossible. Sometimes the best artist for a film project is one who is up-

Songs

681

andcoming, and therefore unlikely to have competing recordings on the charts. The Songwriter’s Responsibilities Film composers are not often involved anymore with the recording production of the songs. If you haven’t written the song, you probably will not arrange it or produce it for the soundtrack. Elmer Bernstein scored the film Ghostbusters, but Ray Parker Jr. wrote the title song and Bernstein had nothing to do with the arrangement or production of the song for the film (or the record). There were six record producers responsible for recording the songs performed by various artists for Footloose (1984) and they were responsible for the arrangers and their arrangements. If you have written the song, you may very well be able to follow through all the way with it, unless the artist insists on his or her own record producer. Although Charles Fox wrote the music (with Norman Gimbel’s lyric) for “Ready to Take a Chance Again” for Foul Play and had arranged and produced most of his film songs, Barry Manilow insisted on controlling the production of that song. When the composer doesn’t know who will sing his song and time is running out before he scores, he has to do the best he can under trying circumstances. “I’ve actually scored a picture,” says Fox, “knowing that we want a singer, with that singer’s key in mind, hoping that we were going to get that person.” Recording the vocal tracks in several alternate keys is a good option; this may save the expense of recording another track later. And unless you are sure it will be either a man or a woman, it is wise to record at least one version for each, just in case. Artists May Request Rewrites When a major artist gets involved in recording a film song, he or she may ask for specific changes. When Norman Jewison, Michel Legrand, and Alan and Marilyn Bergman brought their film song to a best-selling artist with the hope he would sing it on the soundtrack and record it commercially, the artist said, “I think the melody is fabulous, but I do not understand the lyric. If you rework the lyric, I’ll be happy to record this song.” Alan Bergman remembers the moment. “Norman said, ‘This is exactly what I want for my movie—I wouldn’t ask Alan and Marilyn to change a syllable.’” The studio was stunned at Jewison’s response because of the commercial possibilities if the artist recorded the song, but fortunately the director believed in “The Windmills of Your Mind” for his film.

HITS AND BIG BUSINESS They don’t ask you to write for it because they don’t want to have a hit. —Will Jennings, Lyricist

On the track

682

When Randy Newman works on a Disney film, the subject of creating a hit never comes up. “They really just want it to work within the picture. They’d like it to be something they can hum as they leave the theater, but it isn’t essential to them. The main thing is that it serves the picture. Just like a score. That’s what they’re supposed to do, in their entirety. I never think about anything except about serving the picture. A song like ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ had another life in that it was used for a lot of different things. But I wrote it specifically for the scene in which it was in.” The subject of hits is, on the other hand, a subtext of sorts, as Will Jennings has noticed. “Everybody wants one. They hope for the best. I try to give them something powerful that’s in the context of the film and help advise regarding artists and types of production when possible. Though I haven’t done that with James Horner because he has very good ideas and knows how to carry them out. And then you hope for the best, because you never know. You never know what’s going to get them, what isn’t. If you look at it in terms of what was happening at that time, ‘My Heart Will Go On’ was unlikely to be a hit. It’s a fairly direct ballad. It wasn’t something you would necessarily think would be as huge as it was.” It did have a lot of strengths that helped it along, in addition to the huge success of Titanic. “It’s a memorable powerful melody with some lyrics that mean something in the context, and a great performance.” Jennings has seen how successful the interaction between song and film can be. For the success of the song, “they have the extra factor of having a film that promotes the record.” And at best, marketed correctly, the song promotes the film. “It works both ways. And then if it does work, it creates another halo around the film. I remember after Officer and a Gentleman came out and the tune came out, in the space of a few weeks it was right up there. And I picked up the Sunday New York Times and there was a full page ad: ‘Officer and a Gentleman—the film that takes you up where you belong.’” Searching for a Hit Music editor Bob Badami says that on Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Top Gun (1986), “There was a song search, almost a cattle call in a way. They were showing the film to a number of writers and rock ‘n’ roll people. For example, on Top Gun we got well over one hundred cassettes and just started wading through them. The producers, Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, the director, Tony Scott, composer Harold Faltermeyer and myself, and a representative of the record company. We knew where we needed songs and Harold, because he had a good background in records, had a great deal of input as to whether the song was good.” Culling songs from among stacks of demos has become a commonplace procedure in “scoring” a film with songs. The stakes are high, and everybody involved wants to know what is available. The practice of hiring songwriters in advance to write film songs is less frequent than in the seventies, whereas more and more songwriters are being asked if they wish to submit songs on spec for a particular film. Most of the time, when a song is called for on a feature film, the filmmakers hope for commercial exploitation of the song, either as a single or as part of a soundtrack album. The pressure is on everybody to produce hits. When Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager delivered “Nobody Does it Better”

Songs

683

performed by Carly Simon for The Spy Who Loved Me, “the producers were very concerned,” says Hamlisch, “that it was not going to be a hit. They said it was not at all like anything they had gotten before. When you’re used to a big Main Title, and you’re used to ‘Boom! Pow! Zam!’ it’s almost shocking that you’ve spent all that money and all you get out of it is a whisper.” It was, in fact, a big hit. “The ultimate is to have a great title song that fits,” says LeMel. “It’s very difficult because a title song in the main title would be too corny, too on-the-nose and almost never would work. We made it work in Ghostbusters by having it come in with the logo, and there had been so much pre-hype that it worked. But it rarely works, and usually the song ends up in the end title. If there’s a spot in the body of the film where it really would work, like a montage sequence or something, then that’s even better. It’s always better if you can marry the music to an emotional piece of film because that’s what makes people react. They’re not going to react to a song on the end title of a film. “In The Big Chill (1983) they reacted to that music because it was wide open, playing against emotion on the screen which caused them to go to the record store afterwards. That’s the ultimate. And I think that’s what a lot of people in films forget.”

FOOTLOOSE: AN ORIGINAL COMPILATION SONG SCORE If the process of putting individual songs into a film is demanding, creating and supervising the production of an original song score can be a full-time job for many months, or even years. Footloose (the 1984 film about a big-city boy who moves to a small town in which dancing is banned) was scripted by Dean Pitchford, who also wrote all the lyrics. Although he had a number of different songwriting collaborators, including Kenny Loggins (“Footloose”), Tom Snow (“Let’s Hear It for the Boy”), Eric Carmen (“Almost Paradise”), and Bill Wolfer (“Dancing in the Sheets”), Pitchford was the guiding light, giving the project focus and continuity. The Creative Team It is vital that the director and editor understand and share the creator’s vision of what a musical film can be, otherwise it is bound to fall short of its potential. “It was an enormous give and take,” says Pitchford, “and I had to keep track of the whole picture at all times. Serving the song, serving the lyric, serving the artist. I was very fortunate to work with [director] Herb Ross, who is so musical. He choreographed on Broadway for years.” The editor, Paul Hirsch, was a timpanist, and had previously edited such films as Star Wars (1977). “He was very conscious of serving the material. I couldn’t have been happier with the collaboration, because he had an innate sense of what works. I’ve seen pictures where editors cut off the beat, and it makes me crazy. They’ll arbitrarily snip in the middle of a measure or a beat, and it starts to pull me out of the rhythm. He was impeccable about that. And when the song would build, he

On the track

684

Dean Pitchford. would build. Sometimes he’d do funny cut-aways that would punch up a word in the lyric.” Using Role Models The only songs written before filming were “Footloose” with Kenny Loggins, and “Somebody’s Eyes” with Tom Snow. Pitchford selected role models for all other song sequences: “We went through hundreds of records. So when I presented a role model to [director] Herb Ross, I was pointing his head in the direction that the whole scene should go. You’re not locked into the form of the role model, because of contemporary film editing. If you were doing the older musical style where you would track a dance and film the verse in one long take, then of course you have to acknowledge the form of the role model song so that you match the film and arrive at the top of the staircase at the same time that Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers do. But because contemporary choreography and editing is very quick action—cut, cut, cut, cut—almost what has become known as an MTV style, you are not restricted so much to matching the form of the role model when you write your new song.”

Songs

685

Preparing a Scratch Track for Shooting The scratch track should be prepared to click. That’s easy enough if you prerecord the scratch track, but if you use pre-existing recorded material for your scratch track, you still should have it clicked. Pitchford decided to use the 1950s rock song “Jonnny B. Goode” as the scratch track for the sequence that would eventually be scored with the song “Footloose.” He needed a track that would keep the dancers going with a high level of energy for eight to ten hours a day. He knew he would never be able to get that amount of excitement from a demo performance of the song, so he asked cowriter Kenny Loggins what tempo he wanted to use. When they found the ideal click they changed the speed of “Johnny B. Goode” to match it. But the record had been cut before pop groups used click, and so the tempo on “Johnny B. Goode” wasn’t steady. Because the dancers needed the accuracy that a digital metronome would provide, the music editors transferred the record (now sped up to approximate the chosen click) to 35mm mag stripe and clicked it out, adjusting the beats as necessary so that every beat fell on the click. Writing the Lyrics Pitchford’s concept of the project and its goals gave the score a continuity that otherwise might be missing. Throughout the lyrics, there is a combined sense of celebration and sexual exhilaration, and the image of dancing, so important to the story, is an inherent aspect of the song “Footloose,” which is about letting go and dancing, and “Dancing in the Sheets.” “Dancing in the Sheets” Lyric: Dean Pitchford Music: Bill Wolfer

[End of 1st verse] Maybe you don’t like the beat I got a two-track playing in my head So let me take you somewhere else instead Dancing in the Sheets [Chorus] Dancing in the Sheets Grab your coat and wave goodbye to your friend I wanna take you where the night never ends I feel the need to sweep you off-a your feet

On the track

686

You and me we should be Dancing in the Sheets. © 1984 by Famous Music Corporation and Ensign Music Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission. To add further continuity, “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” is sung over a montage of Kevin Bacon teaching his inept nondancing friend how to move to the beat, an idea that allows the visual dancing and verbal sexuality images to play together. Let’s Hear It for the Boy Lyric: Dean Pitchford Music: Tom Snow

[2nd verse] Maybe he sings off key But that’s all right by me (yea) But what he does he does so well Makes me wanna yell [Chorus]

Let’s Hear it for the Boy Let’s give the boy a hand Let’s hear it for my baby You know you gotta understand Oh— Maybe he’s no Romeo But he’s my loving one-man show Oh-wowo-wo Let’s Hear it for the Boy. © 1984 by Ensign Music Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Footloose Song Demos Because of Ross’ background, coproducer Craig Zadan suggested that Pitchford sing each new song for the film to Ross live in his office, rather than making an elaborate demo just to present the song to the director. “He had an upright piano delivered to Herb’s office, and we would go in, pass out lyric sheets, and my collaborator would sit at the piano and I would sing just like we were in some hotel room in Boston, working on a Broadway musical. And his imagination would fill in the rest. And every time Herb had an objection to something, he was absolutely right. And every time he threw his hands up and said, ‘You solved it/ we would go make the record, and it would work.” Working with the Artists “Footloose was a musical,” Pitchford says. “And because I was giving each one of the

Songs

687

artists a chance for a featured performance, they worked. They would go back into the studio over and over and over again. If I would call and make comments about a vocal or about a bass line or about a drummer, we’d go back into the studio. We redid Deniece Williams’ vocal on ‘Let’s Hear It for the Boy.’ We redid the drum and bass patterns on ‘Dancing in the Sheets.’ And we redid the vocal that Shalamar had done on ‘Dancing.’ “I was there, in every studio, for everything. There was one week where we were cutting four different tunes in four different studios. And I would make a circuit that would take me from early afternoon until maybe four o’clock the next morning—every day. I knew all the [record] producers, and I worked very closely with all of them. I would go in to see what they had done with the tracks, and I was always there for the vocal to be laid down. I flew to San Francisco to work with Sammy Hagar; I flew to Chicago in the middle of a snowstorm to pick up the vocals on ‘Almost Paradise.’ “I’d occasionally get thrown out of a studio, and I’d come right back the next day. Even though the artist may have seen the footage once or twice, I had the footage playing in my head all the time. Every time I’d go into the studio, I would close my eyes and see the footage and hear the song simultaneously. So when they would get to the point where they thought they had finished a record, yes, they may have finished all that they needed for a record, but it wasn’t sufficient for the scoring of that segment of the film. And I’d say, ‘No, it needs more uumph, it needs more lift, it needs more vocal, it needs more volume, it needs more punch, it doesn’t take off where I want it to, it doesn’t lay where I want it to.’ And they’d go crazy. Because I was asking them to think about something that they don’t normally have to think about. They do ten cuts on album after album, year after year, and suddenly someone comes along and says, ‘Yeah, that’s a record, but it’s not sufficient for films. It’s got to be more for film.’” Taking Care of Business Pitchford not only followed through on every creative aspect of the music production, but also was involved with every business

Alan and Marilyn Bergman. Photo by Spike Nannarello.

On the track

688

detail, working alongside the music supervisor. “I would never have been able to start if it weren’t for Becky Spargo [Mancuso], the music supervisor. She handled all the business and got the deals worked out before we turned them over to the lawyers. We discussed every step of every deal. There were contracts with writers, producers, artists, and the record labels. We had artists on loan-out from some record labels. “We gave each artist a recording budget, and that budget was to cover studio costs [and all recording costs]. And they were to deliver a finished tape to us, either with their producer or a producer that we would work with or that we would appoint, and what was left over became their fee. She not only played a business role, but a very creative role, so if there was a problem, either one of us could tackle it.”

YENTL: AN ORIGINAL SONG SCORE BY ONE TEAM OF WRITERS Yentl (1983, adapted from Isaac Bashevis Singer’s short story) is the story of a young Eastern European woman at the turn of the century who disguises herself as a boy in order to get an education. “We had read the story of ‘Yentl’ years ago, as Barbra did,” says Marilyn Bergman, “and always felt it was a good idea for a musical. But we never mentioned that to her in all of her struggles to get the picture made. Over a period of years she had many scripts written—she never saw it as a musical—and we never discussed it. “Finally we said, ‘Have you ever thought of it as a musical?’ At first she said, ‘No, it’s like a little European picture, that’s how I’ve always seen it.’ And then she called back and said, ‘How do you see this as a musical? Why is it a musical?’ We always saw it as a musical because of the secret life of this character; from the moment she cuts her hair and dons the clothes of a man there is nobody to whom she can talk. So there was a whole inner life that we always thought could be a wonderful interior monologue—that’s the score, that’s the voice. So we explained that and the work began.” Integrating the Song Concept with the Script “Every song was spotted in the script and the function of each song was written out,” says Marilyn. “Certain ones were very apparent. You knew that there were certain moments where the character had to sing and what she had to sing about. Others we had to dig for, and there was a lot of discarding. “It was always clear that what this wanted to be was one person’s voice. There was a point at which we tried to make a more conventional musical out of it and have some of the other characters sing. It never felt right. We never knew why anybody else was singing. It always then seemed to step into some kind of conventional musical for no organic reason.” Determining the Composer and the Musical Style Streisand and the Bergmans didn’t want to approach the score like Fiddler on the Roof. “Her voice,” says Marilyn, “was a very personal voice. We felt you should never have the

Songs

689

feeling that this could not possibly be nineteenth-century European romantic music. And the composer had to be somebody who wrote well for Barbra’s voice. We soon realized we were describing Michel Legrand. “The source music was kind of ethnic, and there were certain modal sounds—little touches here and there, like perfume. Michel came under a lot of fire. A lot of people wanted to know why the music was not more Jewish, more ethnic. They didn’t understand. It was a conscious choice.” Establishing the Cinematic Use of the Songs “In the very first song we wanted to use every technique for integrating Yentl’s vocals that would be used throughout the movie. There is voice-over, on-screen singing, and interspersed dialogue. The music heard in the synagogue is a variation of that first song.” “The reason for this,” Alan points out, “is so the audience will be subliminally prepared for all the succeeding techniques. To make the first transition from speaking to singing, we have her say a prayer which is halfway between dialogue and song—chantlike. So that when she does begin to sing the audience is prepared for it.” “When she goes into her father’s room, she sings voice-over,” explains Marilyn, “and as soon as she closes the door and turns around, she then is singing on screen because she is again alone. All the ways of using songs are exposed in that first piece.” Where Is It Written? Lyric: Alan and Marilyn Bergman Music: Michel Legrand

[Last refrain] Tell me where, Where is it written what it is I’m meant to be, That I can’t dare To find the meanings in the mornings that I see, Or have my share Of ev’ry sweet imagined possibility? Just tell me where, Where is it written? Tell me where, Or if it’s written anywhere? © 1983 Emanuel Music, Threesome Music Co., Ennes Productions, Ltd. All rights throughout the world administered by April Music Inc. International copyrights secured. Made in the USA. All rights reserved.

On the track

690

Writing the Lyrics and Pre-Recording the Songs The Bergmans spent their first year on the project doing research on the period and the religious tradition. They worked a great deal with two young rabbis, a man and a woman. Because of their complete absorption in the research materials, when they began to write, they worked very quickly, finishing the lyrics in three months. As each song was finished, Streisand would record a piano/vocal demo for reference. The entire score is very integrated into the drama. In “No Wonder,” painstaking planning was necessary to achieve the integration of a voice-over vocal with interjected on-screen spoken lines by Streisand as she dines with her friend Avigdor and his fiancée. No Wonder Lyric: Alan and Marilyn Bergman Music: Michel Legrand

[2nd half] No wonder he loves her—no wonder at all. The moment she sees him her thought is to please him Before he even knows that he’s hun gry she’s already there with his plate. Before his glass is even empty he’s fill ing it up, God forbid he should wait! Before he has the chance to tell her he’s chilly she’s putting a log on the fire. No trouble. No bother. (spoken) No cabbage? (spoken) No, thank you. No wonder she’s pretty. What else should she be? She hasn’t a worry—and why should she worry? When she gets up her biggest decision is figuring out what to wear, To pick a blouse, a skirt and then there’s the problem of what should she do with her hair. And later as she stands and studies a chicken, the question is to roast or not roast?

Songs

691

Or better yet maybe a pot roast (spoken) Tomatoes? (spoken) No. (spoken) Potatoes? No wonder he likes it—it’s perfect this way. [etc.] © 1983 Emanuel Music, Threesome Music Co., Ennes Productions, Ltd. All rights throughout the world administered by April Music Inc. International copyrights secured. Made in the USA. All rights reserved. A week before prerecording began, Alan says that in reading the script again they suddenly realized that there was a moment that needed a song they hadn’t originally planned. “It was like a bolt of lightning,” says Marilyn. “We said, ‘How could we never have seen this before?’ It was a moment that always both-ered us in the script, and we never knew why. It was an important place for a song, when she’s finally accepted into the Yeshiva and says, ‘I’m a student, I’m a student’; in the script, that was all there was. We always felt there was something unfinished about the moment. We needed a song that talked about her fulfillment—this was why she had done all this. Suddenly she’s allowed into this magic kingdom. “We remembered a story that one of the rabbis had told us two years before about three men on a boat crossing from the Old Country to America—a silk merchant, a diamond merchant, and a scholar—and they hit a storm at sea and the waves wash over the boat and sweep everything away. And after the storm is over, the three of them are standing there and the silk merchant says, ‘Now we are left with nothing. What are we going to do—all my silks are gone’; and the jeweler says, ‘All my jewelry’s gone’; and the scholar says, ‘I have exactly what I came with.’ And that story was the genesis of that song (There are certain things that…no wave can wash away, no wind can blow away…no fire can burn away’).” They told Streisand that they had to try to write this song. “We wrote a whole page,” Marilyn continues, “that we really didn’t mean as a lyric, we only meant it as a blueprint for Michel. And he set it. He had never set an English lyric and he set it—every accent was right, every peak was right. It was very exciting.” This Is One of Those Moments Lyric: Alan and Marilyn Bergman Music: Michel Legrand

There are moments you remember all your life. There are moments you wait for and dream of all your life. This is one of those moments. She then describes everything about that moment, and declares everything:

Will be written on my mind, will be written in my heart As long as I live!

On the track

692

In celebration of learning and of her studies with her father that will always be with her, she sings:

I can open doors and take from the shelves All the books I’ve longed to hold. I can ask all the questions, the whys and the wheres As the myst’ries of life unfold. Like a link in a chain from the past to the future That joins me with the children yet to be, I can now be a part of the ongoing stream That has always been a part of me! There are certain things that once you have No man can take away, No wave can wash away, No wind can blow away, No tide can turn away, No fire can burn away, No time can wear away! And now they’re about to be mine! © 1983 Emanuel Music, Threesome Music Co., Ennes Productions, Ltd. All rights throughout the world administered by April Music Inc. International copyrights secured. Made in the USA. All rights reserved.

The business

693

VIII THE BUSINESS

On the track

694

This page intentionally left blank.

The business

695

25 THE BUSINESS There are two words to what we do: the music business. You’ve got to do the music and you’ve got to do the business. —Mike Post

ESTABLISHING A CAREER IN any freelance activity is a challenge, and success may depend upon stamina and courage as much as anything else. Interestingly, the graduates of the one-year postgraduate Film and Television Scoring program at the University of Southern California take a variety of paths as they enter the field. These gifted and welltrained professionals have become composers (for motion pictures, television, video games, commercials, documentaries), orchestrators, conductors, music producers, music editors, creators of music for trailers, music licensing experts, and university teachers, among many other possibilities they have explored. Between the years of 1988 and 1996, this was true also of those who participated in the ASCAP/Fred Karlin Film Scoring Workshop. How do you establish yourself in this demanding field? “My advice is,” says John Tempereau, whose agency, Soundtrack Music Associates, is well-established in the industry, “if this truly is your passion, stay doing something musical, whether it’s orchestrating, songwriting, music editing, whatever it is, get through the bad times by working in the industry and staying musical, and try to pick one of those paths. Keep searching for the independent film, go to work for an established composer and make your contacts.” Laura Karpman offers a further valuable suggestion: “The best advice I can give to any young composer is to keep their lifestyle lean. Save your money for gear and don’t expand your lifestyle. You know, you get a nice check in from a job, just keep it lean as long as you possibly can. Because that is essential to building a career.”

GETTING THE JOB I know that you’re thinking about using some composers that certainly have more credits than I do, but you’ve got to hire me. You’ve got to hire me because I want so badly to do a score that is just magnificent. —Christopher Young

The young really good talent is always going to be found. It never

On the track

696

fails. They get found. Unless they leave Hollywood and give it up. —Michael Horner, Agent/Business Affairs Executive

When Christopher Young had a preliminary meeting with legendary director Norman Jewison (In the Heat of the Night, Fiddler on the Roof) he was passionate about his desire to score Jewison’s new film, The Hurricane (1999). Young, already well established, had over fifty motion picture credits on his résumé, so he can’t be certain of the role his enthusiasm played in his scoring the film. He remembers that when he met Jewison he actually got down on his hands and knees and said,” ‘I will work until my head explodes to try to make this the score that you’ve dreamed of’. So I was extremely passionate,” Young says. “He was kind of laughing, ‘Get up, Get up!’ “Young got a call within the next few days offering him the assignment. Without question, he was experienced and well-prepared for the job. However, whatever your own situation, everyone will respond to your sincere interest in a project. Ultimately a composer is sold on the basis of his music and his credits. “You know,” says Michael Horner, an agent and Head of Business Affairs at Soundtrack Music Associates, “the word gets around if somebody’s good. Eventually they get a shot at something that means something. And just about anybody who evidences some kind of talent in some area of music can get a shot at a series now. Especially half hours.” For the composer to be considered, the director or producer must know about him, and this can happen in one of four ways, through: (1) an agent or other representative (lawyer, business manager, and so on); (2) direct contact with the producer, director, music executive/ supervisor, or others (editor, music editor, for instance); (3) third-party recommendation by a mutual acquaintance, family member, or others; (4) someone who has heard his work and thinks it’s right for a particular project (either the producer, director, or someone who then recommends him to them). Even when a composer has such favorable contacts through previous work with a director, producer, or both, this is not absolute assurance of scoring the picture. These choices must be approved by others, including the network reps in television and executive producers and music executives in feature films. An impressive demo is a composer’s most important marketing device. Experience Experience counts, and although experience in a different, but related, field won’t turn heads unless you are already a recording/ performing star, it can give you the training, technique, and versatility you need to score films. More than a few composers have scored television commercials on their way to feature films. “Commercial writing can be a fantastic springboard into features,” says Peter Nashel, composer of the score for The Deep End (2001). “You become a hobbyist on a certain level, of just all different types of music, even if it’s not something that you’d be naturally drawn to. I think that that informed me a lot.” There is another similarity between the two fields. “One of the things that is really valued in the commercial world is hybrid experimentation. Taking something that you’ve never heard—hip-hop Mariachi music, an Indian vocalist over a

The business

697

string quartet—stuff that would be much more difficult to sell if (a) there weren’t picture, and (b) it were longer than 30 seconds. So the commercial world is ripe for experimentation.” This is exactly the sort of interesting musical combination and idiomatic blending that can be the foundation for a strikingly conceptual film score (see Chapter 8). Living in Los Angeles When John Tempereau considers the possibility of someone breaking into this field who might live, say, in Detroit, he replies, “Don’t bother.” Is that cold or merely a matter of fact? “Well you don’t want to encourage them to come. You must be really honest with them. I have to tell you, even New York is a dead end for composers. Especially lately, it just hasn’t been a fertile ground like it was years ago. Artisan has moved, Shooting Gallery is out of business, the few music supervisors that were based there are working out here now, so it’s a rough market. You can’t live anywhere but right here. There’s something about being in the town every day, being visible, seeing people at lunch, just being in the conversations of the people in town. If you’re not, you’re losing out. If you’re not living in L.A. as a film composer you’re not going to be successful. Everybody thinks, enough trips out here per year—it never works. “If you can get to the level of Howard Shore, yes. And living in London is completely different story, because so much recording is done in London and there are so many great filmmakers that we use from there. But as far as being a television composer, for instance, it’s here or London.” Music Executives Studio music executives are aware of every project that is in production at their company. There are times when they are able to recommend one or more composers for a particular project, and they can be influential in the final selection. Robert Kraft, president of Fox Music, enjoys these opportunities. “I am close to many composers after having done this for a few years, and try and certainly point our directors in the direction of somebody appropriate. Maybe a third of the time—half the time possibly—the director shows up and says, ‘I’m not sure who I should go with on this film,’ so we send them reels and reels of composer’s work and different names and find somebody who will be compatible and hope that it works out, and then I get involved, often cue by cue.” In these cases, the film music agencies work with Kraft and the other music executives to cast the composer. The agents provide a lot of input, sending over tapes and describing their reasons for recommending specific composers for a project. This can be a straightforward process, but not every time. “In a perfect world, of course,” Kraft explains, “the film gets green lit and not long after we have a music meeting, which I always push for. We sit with the director and producer and say, ‘What are you thinking?’ and they say, ‘Oh, this is just a comedic score, a light comedic score with a lot of songs,’ and you say, ‘Well, let’s go get you a record deal that’ll have that flavor of pop music that you’re looking for, and here’s a handful of guys that you should listen to who do that kind of thing.’ And sometimes that works, and sometimes we don’t get it and they go off

On the track

698

and shoot the movie and then it becomes chasing them in Prague or in Toronto to say, ‘Have you thought about the composer and can we introduce you to somebody?’ And the most nervous-making situation is when they come back with the film shot and they still haven’t decided. And then we’re down to the wire, we’ve got to find out who’s available, and who they want, and finally it’s someone we sent him six months ago who’s now unavailable. Always.” Kraft finds that a lot of the newer filmmakers are less articulate about their musical preferences. “They respond knee-jerk to the oddest things. ‘We need the composer of that Mitsubishi commercial.’ ‘Well, what do you mean?’ ‘Well, that’s exactly what I’m looking for.’ ‘Well, you know, that’s a sequence out of a Macintosh, that’s not a piece written for film music.’ ‘Well, that’s the vibe.’ Sometimes they just don’t even know how to tell you what they want. Or know what they want.” Then it’s up to Kraft to bring his experience to them and translate what it is they may actually be looking for. “You know what I think you’re looking for?,” he’ll say to them in that particular situation. “Somebody who has a good understanding of electronics and pop-rock but is also dramatic.” His translating skills are sometimes challenged. “I wish I could tell you that I understood half the time what is being expressed. It takes psychotherapy when they give you a strange piece of music and say, ‘This is the sound I’m looking for,’ and you say ‘Wait a minute. This is a thriller, and you’ve just played me a piece of circus music. And you’re looking for a kind of carnival—?’ ‘No, no, no, no, it’s that sound.’ ‘Well, which sound? The calliope?’ You spend a lot of time to decipher, ‘So, what is this guy thinking? I’m not clear.’ “In cases like these, Kraft works with the agencies and with his extensive knowledge of the composers in Los Angeles to find an appropriate composer for the project. Some of these situations are good opportunities for a newer composer in town to break in. At other times it’s pretty clear what is needed. “You have guys who show up and say, ‘I know exactly what I want, and it’s a Jerry Goldsmith Chinatown thing.’ ‘Okay, let’s go get Jerry Goldsmith.’” In television, Kraft sees the casting of composers as much more agent intensive. “The producers of the TV shows are often much clearer and make much faster judgment calls, and more often than not they have relationships they just plug in. It’s really very rare, actually, that I have to start submitting stuff and going through lists of composers. For them it’s like hiring session players. There are six guys that play drums on everything, and let’s get one of them to play the drums on your date. It works that way with TV series, there are a handful of composers who do a lot of the series. ‘Cause it’s so schedule intensive, it’s rare that these TV guys go to somebody new to experiment. They go to somebody who’s done three years of series and just go, ‘Knock out something but make it sound like this.’ So it’s a simpler process in many ways.” Music Supervisors When there is no studio music executive, as is the case with most independent films, a music supervisor may be working as the music executive. Sometimes the music supervisor will be able to recommend composers to the filmmakers for a project. “It depends on the film,” says music supervisor Maureen Crowe (The Bodyguard). “In a lot

The business

699

of cases they want to be introduced to new composers and so you’ll be suggesting to them composers, depending on what the budget of the film is and the style of the composing.”

MOVING FROM TELEVISION TO FILMS Making the transition from composing for television to film work used to be very, very difficult to do, as there was a great deal of exclusivity established by motion-picture filmmakers. With the few exceptions, composers such as Jerry Goldsmith, Basil Poledouris, or Bruce Broughton, who alternated freely between prestigious television projects and films, it was rare for a composer to move back and forth from television to movies. Even then, the move was from movies to television, not the reverse. To some extent this is still so. Thomas Newman wrote the theme for “Six Feet Under,” James Newton Howard created the theme for “ER,” but it’s more difficult to cite the successful transitions from television to films. In spite of that, John Tempereau sees a greater open-mindedness in the film industry, and a recognition of the existing practicalities involved. “Electronics make it easier for smaller production companies to hire composers. They don’t have to worry about in-house personnel or hiring contractors. It’s allowed smaller production companies to find music.” So, the first move might not be from a television series to a major motion picture, but to an independent film with a modest budget.

DEMOS You can’t even get an agent interested in representing you without an impressive demo. These demos are sales tools and should be created with the same attention to overall impact and detail that the composer would devote to any other demanding professional task. Putting together an impressive demo isn’t easy, even if the composer has film credits and ample material to chose from. How to Prepare a Good Demo Composer’s demos should be of high technical quality: You can’t expect the prospective listener to imagine how good it would sound if only you’d had a live orchestra, better musicians, or better audio quality. A general overall demo should not be too long. Horner suggests “12 to 15 minutes, every track complete, no fadeouts or it sounds like library music. Avoid your weaknesses. Some tracks can be longer cues if they are ‘right.’ Prepare it as though it is a mini-CD.” His colleague, John Tempereau, will go with demos up to 20 or 25 minutes if it’s a film demo. “And I’m not scared to go up to 30 minutes. You don’t go beyond that, though. You have to give them some material. It’s hard. You don’t want them to bail out, but at the same time some of these guys have a lot of wonderful material and you don’t know what’s going to catch their ear.” Bodie Chandler, former Vice President of Music, Columbia Pictures Television,

On the track

700

suggests that “a tape should show me the compositional, orchestrational, and dramatic skills, and the well-rounded talent of a composer. It should show me that he can do contemporary, a little rock ‘n’ roll, a little jazz, and of course the standard type score. Some composers take ten or fifteen cues and give you ten or twelve seconds of each one of them. That’s terrible. I can’t really get a feel for the flow of the music, or how the composer gets into and out of a cue or how they build dramatically. I like to hear a full cue from the beginning to the end. There’s nothing wrong with a two-and-a-half minute cue if it’s representative of some of the composer’s best work, but if it’s just a twominute holder under dialogue, don’t put it on the tape—I’ll fall asleep. “If you’ve done a score on synthesizer, present the most interesting parts of that score. So many of them sound alike, it’s incredible. I find that tapes with an acoustic orchestra can display more of a composer’s abilities than can a tape of synthesized music. If somebody hasn’t had their first credit yet, even in an episode, I think they should try to facsimilate a cue. Look at a scene in an episode [of a series] and take down some overall timing notes and actually write some music for that scene.” Harry Lojewski, former Vice President of Motion Picture and Television Music, MGM/UA, adds this suggestion: “If you put a demo together, think of it like a soundtrack album—put the most exciting piece of music up first, then something very lyrical, completely opposite, and then something interesting. Try to get it together so it all has a lot of interest. You never know at what point the filmmaker’s going to stop the CD. Length doesn’t matter if it has enough variety.” Director John Erman listens for something unique. “Basically I look for something that seems original to me because I want somebody to come to a project with an original point of view. If I hear something that is provocative in its originality, I will think, ‘Does this kind of sound mesh with the story that I’m trying to tell?’” Preparing Special Demos for a Specific Project John Erman’s question is very important in today’s marketplace: Producers and directors want to hear music that they feel is exactly suited to the style and requirements of their film. The question has become: “What can the composer play for us that works with our film?” With this in mind, agencies frequently prepare (or help their clients prepare) demos specifically customized for each individual project for which they are submitted. They will take into account, as much as possible with the material available, what the film is about and what musical direction the filmmakers may have in mind: whether electronics or orchestra, scoring or song-oriented, light or heavy, dramatic or intimate. “And that’s not to say that you might not run home and put together some original material because you’d rather,” adds Horner. The creation of new, original music for submission is not that unusual. The composer might not have just the right cue, yet believe themselves perfect for the film and its requirements. And in some cases the filmmakers will request some new music on spec (no fee). “One of the things I did on Face/Off to get the job was to do demos,” John Powell says. “And I did 15 minutes of music before I was signed on. You know, they wanted to be sure.” This was Powell’s first film, in 1997, and he considers it understandable that they would want to hear what he was going to do before they made a

The business

701

commitment. Demonstrate Diversity When a filmmaker likes a composer for his project, the demo tape is a tool for him to convince others (producers, network reps, music supervisors) of his versatility and quality; therefore, when possible, these tapes should be geared to demonstrating overall expertise as well as satisfying specific style areas. Sometimes a second tape covering a broader range of music is sent along with the specific one to cover this need, but if so, it should be so noted in correspondence to the filmmaker. Making Copies You’ll need a number of duplicate copies of your demo(s). They should be CDs. If you burn them yourself, be sure to label them clearly with your name, phone number, and address on both the CD and the J-card; the people you will be meeting have stacks of indistinguishable CDs in their offices and cars. The labels should look professional and every aspect of your presentation should exhibit good taste.

BEING HEARD Remember: you’ve got to be heard to be discovered. The target audience is obvious: agents, studio music executives, production company and independent music supervisors, filmmakers, composers. A standard resource like the current edition of the Hollywood Reporter Blu-Book will get you started, and the Hollywood Creative Directory’s separate books listing producers and directors can be very useful in providing names, addresses, and contact information. The Hollywood Reporter film and television music special issues (published four times a year) will have names and contact information for music executives and agents (contact them to learn which recent or upcoming issues would be the most helpful for you in that regard). Make calls, write letters, send off demos, and follow up on leads. Revise your demo as often as necessary to keep it current and diversified. Send a new demo to an established contact, pointing out in a cover letter what to listen for. If you have a project being performed in public, or your film score is on the air, send out e-mail, cards, or letters letting people know about it; you never know who will watch at an opportune moment. Even those who don’t watch will have seen your name connected with some professional activity, and this begins to establish continuity.

AGENTS Don’t worry so much about getting an agent. Focus on getting yourself working in the industry and let the agents find you. —John Tempereau, Agent

On the track

702

What we always say to them is, “We can’t take you from zero to 60 but we might be able to take you from 30 to 60.” —Michael Horner, Agent/Business Affairs Executive

It’s not easy to get representation. And aspiring composers often don’t realize that agents don’t usually get composers their first jobs in any case. There were over 50 companies listed under the heading “Music Representation” in the January 2002 Hollywood Reporter Film & TV Music Special Issue. Some are huge agencies without much specialization in film music; others are boutique specialty agencies solely concentrating in this area. In reality, only a handful of agencies are active and successful as filmcomposer representatives. But there are many hundreds (if not thousands) of composers who are available and interested in working in the field. Tempereau says that Soundtrack Music Associates may sign perhaps six or less new clients per year, and “they’re either coming from other established agencies and they’re unhappy or they’re crossing over from another field, where they’re so hot that the film industry wants them.” By and large, most of an agent’s new clients come as a result of referrals from others in the industry who they trust: people at the performing rights societies, other composers. This leaves very little opportunity for the up-and-coming composer with few credits. While a composer is increasing his experience and developing his technique, he would be wise to begin establishing a connection with an agent if he can get one’s attention, even though there is not yet the possibility of being signed. With Christophe Beck, “I was represented even from the first gig, not on a regular basis, but I would get my own gigs and I would bring them to the same agent and say, ‘Got another gig. Can you negotiate it for me?’ And I would pay the ten or fifteen percent, which I’m sure I didn’t need to pay, in many of those cases the money was what the money was. But it established a relationship with an agent and after a certain point she realized I was working more than some of her clients and so she took me on.” After a composer has acquired some composing credits and does find an agent who is enthusiastic about representing him, he still needs help in lining up more work because, especially at this point, he may feel uncomfortable hustling his own demo tapes to industry people. The agent can be of great help, because agents are among the people contacted by filmmakers to find the right composer for a film project, and they do aggressively submit composers for specific projects. Signing with an Agent The agent will guarantee to use his best efforts to obtain assignments. He will make no promises, and may tell you to expect it to “take time.” If you sign, he should discuss his efforts with you on a regular basis (not every day, but more than once a month). While he is preparing to submit you for a project, he may discuss the project with you in order to determine if you have appropriate demo material he may not remember or be aware of. His responsibilities and work methods should be discussed before signing. “Once you decide to represent somebody you take his 17-minute demo that he’s given you but you

The business

703

also get everything else in his entire library,” says John Tempereau. “And you say, ‘Okay, now let us wade through it.’ There are going to be times when maybe he hasn’t done enough, or we’re going to ask him to do some stuff on spec electronically. Invest some time. We’re not going to ask him to spend money, but we may ask him to invest some of his time to do some demos, because nowadays almost everybody’s got a studio that sounds pretty darn good. So once you do that, you have to get a direction for where you’re going. And then we’ve got to start marketing too, we start sending out music and talking to people.” The Composer/Agent Deal Points When a composer signs with an agency, the chances are there won’t be any official paperwork or contract to sign. If the composer wishes, any legitimate agent will draw up appropriate papers, but typically there is a discussion about representation and a handshake. No one wants to be held to an agency relationship if it is not working out. Ask for papers if you prefer your agreement written rather than oral, especially if there are terms you have negotiated with the agency that are unusual. The following are the basic terms the composer should expect to discuss for inclusion in any agency agreement: 1. Agent’s Responsibilities. The agent will submit the client for scoring assignments. The agent will collect all money due, deduct his commission (and expenses, if any), and issue an exchange check drawn on his client trust account for the balance within a day or two. In addition to negotiating all the deal points, he will remind the production office that money is due, and follow through on all details and paperwork related to the project. 2. Duration. Usually one year, renewable. The agent and composer may consider negotiating an automatic renewal clause if certain stipulated performance criteria are met by the agent (either in terms of a specified minimum gross—minus packaging expenses—for the year, the number of projects, or some other mutually satisfactory formula). 3. Exclusions. The composer can negotiate exclusions in areas in which the agent doesn’t function (which might include commercials, concert engagements, club dates as a musician, orchestrating done for other composers, theater, etc.). 4. Commissions. 10 percent is standard in Los Angeles. Package deals are calculated differently by different agencies and composers, sometimes a lower percentage (say, 7 1/2 percent, for instance), sometimes 10 percent after expenses are itemized by the composer. This is negotiable and may vary depending on the project. Film music agents typically commission a percentage of the composer’s artist royalties and mechanical royalties on soundtrack albums and singles that come from film projects they negotiate. They do not commission performance royalties from ASCAP or BMI. Because orchestration can be an important deal point in an agent’s negotiation with the producer (especially in television projects), agents feel entitled to commission payments to the composer for orchestration performed on his own projects, but not any orchestration done by a third party brought in by the composer. 5. Escape Clause. All agency agreements have escape clauses that allow the artist to

On the track

704

formally withdraw from the agent’s representation under certain circumstances. The most common clause allows the composer to leave the agency if the agent has not submitted to him a bona fide offer in a consecutive four- to six-month period. As a matter of policy, agents have traditionally allowed composers and lyricists to cancel representation at any time if they are dissatisfied and the agent feels this dissatisfaction is not just the result of a misunderstanding that could be worked out with some candid dialogue.

FILM AND TELEVISION DEAL POINTS It’s still about money. So how much can you give us now, and how much can you give us later. And what is my client, the composer, going to have to do and what’s he going to have to and not have to do with this money. —Michael Horner, Agent/Business Affairs Executive

Once you get an offer to score a project, you will need to consider what position to take about various negotiable and not-sonegotiable deal points. You can simply turn over all such matters to your agent, but this is not advisable. It is much better to be involved in your own business and to collaborate with your agent on the terms of each deal. You can always leave final decisions in certain areas up to him, or concede to the producer on any negotiable areas on which you cannot prevail. 1. Fee. This will include conducting (and sometimes orchestration, depending on the medium; see page 55 for the range of fees). When working for small (or unknown) independent production companies, the composer might consider negotiating some method of bonding the entire package, creative fee, or even the whole music budget by placing it in a trust fund of some sort, to ensure payment. If the company is legit, this can usually be worked out to everyone’s satisfaction. 2. Orchestration. Does the composer receive a separate fee for orchestration or is it included in his creative fee? Variations include receiving scale for orchestration up to a fixed amount, or scale for any orchestration done by another person (often due to the production company’s tight time schedules). “If it was a creative fee situation,” says Horner, “we’d have to know the nature of the project immediately when we negotiate the deal, because we’re not going to expose someone to a decent creative fee and then have him do tons of orchestration for their compensation. And that’s when we might say to the producer, ‘Well, you’ve got to cover third-party orchestration at least,’ and then the composer can step back and farm it out or not. If we know it’s going to be a large ensemble we run budgets before we close the deal. Only if it’s going to be huge. But with a package we always do, especially orchestral packages, which we try not to take, but we take them.” 3. Payment schedule. In episodic TV, payment is due upon completion of recording; in television films, often 50 percent on start (spotting) and 50 percent upon completion of recording. In features, if the composer will be spending more than a month on the

The business

705

project, possibly some other formula of spreading the payments over the length of assignment is created, but typically a payment is made upon commencement of services (which might be spotting or prior to spotting), and then another payment prior to recording, with a final payment at the end. There is a lot of agency effort involved in keeping these payments coming in on schedule. 4. Credit. End title credit in episodic TV is typical, sometimes shared with the music supervisor. Single card credit is desirable if it can be negotiated. Whether the composer receives main or end title credit is negotiable on television films, although usually main title credit will be given, “equal in size, type, style, and length of time on screen as that accorded the writer, director and producer.” The composer decides how his credit should read: “Music by….” is typical. “Music composed and conducted by….” is also traditional (if you conduct), but it’s good to remember that the less you say about yourself, the more prominent your name will be for the short duration of the onscreen credit. Songs will receive separate credit billing, and if you write a song that must be negotiated as well. 5. Credit in paid ads. This is sometimes granted with longform television, with standard industry exclusions regarding the minimum size ad required for credit. Some television producers and production companies do not like to guarantee this. Paid ad credit is standard in most composer/motion picture agreements. 6. Publishing. Ownership of the publishing rights can be very valuable for the composer, but these rights are most often nonnegotiable in Hollywood, particularly with the major studios that have their own gigantic publishing enterprises. It is very unusual in television. On motion pictures, independent production companies are more likely to negotiate the publishing rights and income. Often this issue is used to help put together a deal on a film with budget problems; a share of the publishing is given as a tradeoff for less money in front. The so-called “publisher” (copyright owner) of the film score or song may or may not actually publish (i.e., print) the music, but the “publisher” receives substantial royalties (see p. 55) equal to the composer’s royalties, directly from the performing rights societies (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC) for performances all over the world in any medium (except theatrical film exhibition in the United States). The “publisher” also shares 50/50 all mechanical royalties from the sale of recordings, sheet music, etc. 6a. Sheet music. The royalty range can be 10 to 15 cents per copy. This is somewhat negotiable, and has increased over the years. There is an industrywide standard set of terms for other kinds of printed music. 7. Soundtrack album/singles. A royalty schedule for the composer as artist (conductor) is negotiated, with the average in television usually being 9 percent of retail (6 percent for the artist and another 3 percent for the record producer), although recording industry tradition often defines this as “6 percent of 90 percent of retail” (10 percent is held for spoilage). On features, 9 to 12 percent is the range (for artist and producer). As a rule, the composer is both artist and producer on soundtrack albums, unless he should choose to include another party (perhaps the mixer, for instance). Soundtrack albums that are primarily or completely songs are a separate matter, with a record producer assigned to the project specifically to produce the album. Depending on the situation, there might be a coproduction credit for the composer if it is warranted. A formula is

On the track

706

devised to prorate the artist royalties in cases in which there are other performing artists involved. 8. New use fees. A fee may be negotiated for the release of a television film in theaters (50 to 100 percent of the original fee), which happens sometimes when the film is released in theaters abroad. Deal points for feature films may include new use fees for a film when released on cable TV, and/or network or syndicated TV. This would be possible as part of a back-end deal (see below). 9. Exclusivity. The composer is usually considered to be nonexclusive with first priority given to the project, although production companies occasionally may insist that the composer work exclusively for them for the duration of a project with a very tight schedule. And standard language at some studios might include exclusivity during the days when the composer is recording. Package Deals Package deals must clearly articulate up front the exact responsibilities of the composer. The most typical package deals in Hollywood require the composer to pay all expenses involved in delivering the recorded music to dubbing, with the following exceptions: (1) the music editor’s fee (even this is negotiable and may be included in the package); (2) transfer costs after delivery; (3) vocalists and lyricists (other than scale studio singers included as instruments in the score); (4) licensing and recording of third-party material (see below) for songs or recorded performances the producer and director select to include on the soundtrack; and (5) rescoring after delivery and acceptance. Christophe Beck urges composers to “make sure the filmmakers have the correct expectations. On smaller package deals, they need to know not to expect an orchestra. On larger package deals, they need to know the circumstances. For example, when I was in Seattle, I warned them several times, ‘You know, we’re not going to a real studio, it’s a converted church, there’s not going to be catering, it’s low budget.’ “You’ve got to let them know up front how many musicians to expect also. Gary LeMel, president, Worldwide Music, Warner Bros. Pictures, says,” On the package deal it’s up to the composer with the exception of, he tells us up front what it’s going to be. There’s going to be electronic, we’ll have three cellos and whatever, but if the production asks for more, wants a bigger sound, or more strings, or whatever, then it’s on us.” Even taking as much care as possible, the economics of packaging are difficult to control. Laura Karpman’s observations are typical: “I’m my own worst enemy. The truth of it is that it’s not a nightmare in terms of people asking for something I can’t deliver; it’s me wanting to deliver more than I can afford. Obviously you’ve got to be careful so that doesn’t happen, but you’ve got to make hard choices. For Taken [a 20-hour miniseries] for example, I wanted to record it on a stage and I went back and asked if they would pay for that and they wouldn’t. So I couldn’t do it on a stage, we just had to do it in a smaller room. So you just have to make the choices. I wanted to have 53 pieces and I had to cut it back to 41.” Some events are not within the composer’s control. This is particularly true when a director or producer wants to experiment on the scoring stage, perhaps trying a cue several different ways. It is up to the composer (and his agent if he is present) to step into

The business

707

a situation like this and define the terms of the scoring sessions for the filmmaker. “At the first ten-minute break,” John Tempereau says, “you pull him aside and say, ‘Look. I appreciate that, but you know what, you can’t do that. You had your opportunity and you’re going to slow us down.’ And if I don’t have that relationship with the director, I pull the producer aside and say, ‘Look, if we go over just realize it’s on your tab.’” Back-End Deals When there isn’t enough money up front to pay the composer his established fee and also cover all music-budget expenses for a feature film, creative agents and composers sometimes put together “back-end deals” that strengthen the potential compensation for the composer after the film has been released. These deals are gambles for the composer, because if the film isn’t successful or released in other ancillary markets, the composer may end up with an impressive back-end percentage of nothing. The operative theory is: if the film does well, the composer will do a bit better than he would have if he had received his normal fee up front. Composer Michael Whalen, who also teaches film scoring at the Berklee College of Music, suggests composers assess the potential business possibilities inherent in each new project. “Every time out of the box you have to look at it with a blank sheet of paper,” he says, “and say, ‘Okay, what opportunity am I getting here, and what are they offering?’” It takes flexibility on the part of the composer, his agent, and the producer to make back-end deals work. Possible back-end compensation to the composer includes: (1) the music publishing ownership or revenue sharing (some percentage, called a splitpublishing deal, or total ownership); (2) box office bumps (if it grosses over $70 million or whatever as reported in Daily Variety, the composer gets an additional payment of $10,000, for example); (3) a one-time fee when the film is sold to cable and/or free TV; (4) a larger-than-normal artist royalty for any soundtrack records; or (5) a prenegotiated advance against album royalties when and if a soundtrack deal is made, which is particularly advantageous for music supervisors. On independent films, you might negotiate a payment if they get a distribution deal, whether that is distribution into television, cable, video, or theatrical release. Horner adds that you might include “all forms of digital distribution.”

COMMERCIALS The business of scoring commercials is different than that of film and television scoring. Perhaps most significantly, advertising agencies request demos from a number of different music houses or individual composers for each new project. These demos have to be created, produced, and delivered to the agency within as little time as half a day. Michael Whalen, who scored something like 1,500 commercials before scoring television projects, says it is typical to receive a videotape at ten o’clock in the morning to be delivered back with music by two or three o’clock that same day. “There were days when I was doing three or four demos a day, for different clients at different agencies. If you’re lucky, you’re going to get one out of four, two out of five jobs. So you need to do a lot, a

On the track

708

lot, a lot of demos to make this into a real business. Which means your whole set up, your whole mode of working, needs to be built around speed. Getting to your sounds, getting to your ideas, getting the stuff mixed, on a CD, on a DAT, mix that to the videotape as soon as possible, and you’re on to the next one. “You need a studio set up that’s not only sounding good, but you need to know it. You need to know where everything is, [and] where all your sounds are. If a client asks you to go in a very specific direction or gives you a temp track, how do you do that and how do you do that quickly? That’s really knowing your equipment upside down.” He points out that it is not economically feasible for an individual composer to pay for assistance on these demos. The average demo fee is $1,500 and, in most cases, the fee will go to a music-production house that specializes in commercials; they will then contact three to five composers, each of whom will do a demo for the agency. In these much more typical cases, a composer might receive $300 to do the demo. If you get the job, the music house will probably take 60 percent of the amount allocated for the final creative fee, with the composer receiving 40 percent. The fees range from about $7,000 to perhaps $17,500 as package deals. Whalen notes, “You break it up between creative arranging fee, production fee,

which is going to include studio, your engineer and all that stuff,and then the talent. Depending on whose studio it’s producedin, they’ll probably cut you in on some portion of the studiomoney, and then you’ll get a line or two on the A.F. of M.contract.” Because of the various union and guild reuse fees, the agencies are very specific as to how many musicians you can use. For example, Whalen says, “You cannot hire any more than four players; you cannot hire any more than two singers. That kind of thing. They will be all over you about the amount of doubles, the amount of synthesizer lines. Say you do an all-synth underscore track, and in terms of union rules you’re entitled to eight or nine lines in terms of what you played. You get two. If you do a vocal session, people from the agency want to see the singers actually sing.” Whalen cautions that you might find yourself responsible for the entire sound job, not just the music. That would include both sound effects (cars, backgrounds, and everything else) and also the less clearly defined area between music and effects: the stylized effect of the whoosh of a car going by, for instance.

ASCAP AND BMI These two organizations license the nonexclusive right (except grand rights and sync rights) to perform publicly all copyrighted musical works of their members. Both organizations collect license fees from the major television networks and local stations, cable TV, radio stations, public broadcasters, colleges and universities, taverns and restaurants, canned music such as Muzak, private clubs, hotels, concert halls, airlines, dance studios, and other similar sources. They then distribute to their members all income from licensing after deducting operating costs, which are about 15 to 20 percent of gross receipts. Distributions for domestic performances and foreign performances are each made quarterly. They are based on the number and kind of performances logged in their

The business

709

“surveys.” ASCAP—the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (established in 1914)—is a nonprofit membership association, with a board of directors made up of twelve writer members and twelve publisher members elected by the entire membership. BMI—Broadcast Music, Inc. (established in 1940)—is a corporation that was established by the broadcasters to provide an alternative to ASCAP. Although their members do not sit on the board of directors, the basic method of collecting and distributing performance royalties is similar to that of ASCAP. BMI, however, has more freedom to modify, at its discretion, the amounts distributed to the various categories, such as film music, radio performances, heavily performed works, and other variables. Rates According to ASCAP’s Diana Szyszkiewicz (Shish-kev-itch), Senior Director of Distribution and Membership Projects, members received the following background music rates as of 2003 (100 percent of the writer’s share, which is divided between all composers of a given piece of music; if lyrics, then the split is 50 percent for composer [s], 50 percent for lyricist[s]): • Prime time network television (ABC, CBS, NBC, from 7:00 P.M. to 2:00 A.M. ca. $180 per based on a 200-plus network hookup) minute • Syndicated television (no time-ofday differences)

ca. $40 per minute

Royalties are calculated on surveyed shows. • Sample cable rates

$145 per minute for prime time on Fox, WB, and UPN.

When a song becomes the chief focus of attention, it is called a “featured performance.” Here are the 2003 rates for these: • Prime time network television (ABC, CBS, NBC; :45 minimum air time). • Syndicated television (:45 or more air time; no time of day differences)

$2,100 $500

Royalties are calculated on surveyed shows; shared 50–50 by composer(s) and lyricist(s). • Sample cable rates: $910 per a feature performance of more than 45 seconds, on Fox, WB, and UPN. These ASCAP rates are given to illustrate the payment structure and suggest the potential for cash flow from broadcast performances. BMI representatives say their rates are similar; printed payment schedules are available from each organization on request. Szyszkiewicz urges composers “to understand their royalties, all the potential streams of income, and not to give away their writer’s share—ever!” She also points out that it is

On the track

710

wise to call the performing rights organizations and make appointments to meet their membership departments. “We are a great resource for creators, who may not know where to go for their information.” These organizations can provide you with a great deal of assistance, guidance, and many helpful suggestions. They can also facilitate networking between other composers and lyricists.

MUSIC BUDGETS The first decision on a new film project is to set a budget. Gary LeMel describes the process: “On a green-lighted picture I read the script, then meet with the director— sometimes the director and the producers (or sometimes with the producer only, because they haven’t hired a director yet). Even before that, we’ve usually done a budget in order to get the picture green-lighted. For the budget, I try to get as much information as I possibly can. By the nature of the script, if it’s a flat-out teenage film and I see all kinds of spots for songs, I know that this is going to be more expensive than a score. Usually there’s information floating around on the type of director or the actual director. Knowing that, I can pretty well tell from his track record where his musical tastes lie. So I budget for as many songs as I can see in the picture, plus score, plus licensing if standards are talked about or if titles are talked about.” It is not unusual (especially in television) for the music executive to set a preliminary budget by using the precedent of the last project of the same genre. The budget on a lowbudget feature film (in 2002), according to LeMel, including composer, copyist, and musicians, and all other expenses, is from $200,000 to $300,000 for underscoring (see Chapter 5). At that level, most of the deals are package deals. A medium-budget film might have a music budget of $ 1.2 million (with no songs, lyrics, or license fees), LeMel says. Robert Kraft at Fox cites $650,000 to $750,000, with perhaps half of them package deals, so there is considerable range in the middle ground, depending on the nature of the film and its music needs. Music budgets on films that are song oriented can be sky high, when you add in artists fees and licenses for the songs and master recordings. The decision to put large amounts of money into a film’s soundtrack is not related particularly to the film’s budget, says LeMel. “It applies more to, can it help the film, can it help the marketing? ‘Cause if it’ll help the marketing, then the marketing department will kick in for some of it. And sometimes if it’s going to help the foreign distributors [which is us, but we have a whole group that does that] we can sometimes get money out of them. We can also, rarely but sometimes, get money out of home video, because they’re going to profit by it down the road. If it’s really a fairly sure-thing artist, most people are pretty good about coming up with the money. If it’s an artist they haven’t really heard of or it’s an emerging artist, they’re not so quick to do it.” In practice the low-end music budgets for small independent films can be as little as $15,000 for an all-inclusive package deal. “Eighty percent of the independent deals fall within the range of $35,000 to $150,000 package deals,” says John Tempereau. “Eighty percent of the studio deals fall within the range of $150,000 to about $800,000 packages.” A typical music budget for a two-hour television movie (in 1988) is from $25,000 (low) to about $60,000. These are typically package deals. A 4- to 6-hour

The business

711

miniseries might be in the $150,000 to $175,000 range as a package, but you will be expected to use an orchestra.”

LICENSING To use an existing specific copyrighted piece of music and/or a specific recorded performance of such a piece in a film requires licensing it from the publisher (copyright holder) and record company, respectively. This clearance can be complex, depending on a number of factors: is the usage for the United States only or for world rights? For perpetual use or five years only? For network, cable, theatrical, home video? For background use or main titles? For how many minutes? On screen or off? Are there several separate uses or one continuous use? Do the lyrics refer to the action in some way? Is it a low-budget or major production? Is the recording artist an established star or newcomer? Is the recording an obscure oldie or a new hit? The record company may have to negotiate these “synchronization licenses” with the recording artists, because many have the contractual right to approve any use of their material in audiovisual projects. Some artists don’t want their music associated with certain kinds of films, heavy drug culture or organized crime stories, for example. A struggling artist may be less concerned with aesthetics than cash, and the fees can range from $5,000 to as much as $200,000 for a single use in a film. In addition to the record clearance, the publisher must also license the synchronization use of the copyrighted song. Some deals have fallen through because publishers require a unit royalty on videocassettes and studios are reluctant to accept anything other than a onetime “buy-out.” It takes time to clear these rights. This is not the composer’s direct concern. It is a director’s and producer’s decision, one that may come about because the director is sure that this music will support his story and appeal to his projected audience most effectively. Or it may come about because the newly composed film score cannot ultimately satisfy the director as well as the existing music he temped in during the production process. Licensing can be more expensive than scoring, and only directors, producers, and business people can decide whether its increased cost is worth the value it adds to the film. Licensing Fees The combined fees for the use of the master and the sync rights for one song typically will fall in the $30,000 to $100,000 range, although with some valuable copyrights and master recordings the fees can be higher. When LeMel requests a price for master recording use, “usually what they’ll do, too, is they’ll say, ‘How much are you paying for the sync license?’ And some of them just double it. We’ll say, ‘We’re paying 50 [thousand] for the sync,’ and they’ll say, ‘Okay, it’s 50 [thousand] for the master.’ It can be more expensive to secure these licenses than to pay for newly created works, but there are marketing considerations involved in addition to creative decisions. Licensing Songs

On the track

712

LeMel describes the typical chain of events leading to the licensing of popular songs: “Sometimes they are indicated in the script and we budget exactly from that, knowing that they could be replaced. Many scripts call for whatever the big songs of the moment are—most writers write in the biggest acts in the world. So that’s expensive. Initially, we actually budget for this and then wait and see. Then what really happens is there will be a call saying that the picture can’t be made for the X million dollars (which is what our budget adds up to with their budget) and it’s, ‘Can we do the music for $500,000 instead of for $700,000?’ And that’s when it really takes conversation, primarily with the director, about what he really sees. That’s up to the studio. In some cases where they really want to make the picture and they’re apart by three or four hundred thousand dollars and they absolutely have to get it, we will make an exception and use the advance money from the record company in the music budget. But that’s a [judgment] call.” There are musical theater and pop standards that the music publisher may or may not license, at their discretion. And sometimes the songwriter’s family is involved in making these decisions, as in the case of the Irving Berlin or Cole Porter catalogs. “It’s not so much about money,” LeMel says. “It takes so much time. We had this problem with [Robert] De Niro in Analyze That, where he’s constantly singing songs from West Side Story. And it’s really funny. And it’s really part of the character, but when we saw the script, we said, ‘You guys know how much money you’re talking about?’ So they said, ‘Okay, come up with something else.’ And we came up with a whole bunch of other things, and it never works as well, ‘cause they’ve got it in their mind. So we ended up paying a lot of money.” Licensing Classics Popular songs are not the only licenses that are acquired. In Oliver Stone’s Oscarwinning war story Platoon (1986), Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings is used unchanged (in addition to music Georges Delerue wrote for the film). Stone had to consider the advantages and disadvantages of using music that had been used elsewhere. “Nobody has used Adagio as the theme for an entire movie. It has been used in pieces— for one scene: one scene in Elephant Man (1980), one scene in El Norte (1983). So I committed to it fully, and used it as my theme of youth, and nobody has used it like that. Now I don’t think anybody will after Platoon”

SOUNDTRACK ALBUMS With the new low-budget agreement, we’re doing the most CDs we’ve ever done. CDs that never, never would have been released. —Sandy De Crescent, Contractor

Soundtrack albums can be very expensive. If a producer is able to sign one of the bigname “sure thing” artists to do a song, LeMel says, “and you had single rights and their company was going to work it and it was the perfect situation, you’re probably paying in

The business

713

the million dollar range for the artist. Let’s say it’s a well-known rap artist, half a million. We gave Nelly a Rolls Royce. Which was less than a half a million, by the way. But he wanted to drive it home that weekend.” Another type of soundtrack album is comprised completely of songs (or almost so, with perhaps a track or two from the original instrumental score). According to LeMel, “I would say that an anthology soundtrack album of songs, by artists of some note, would range up to $1.2 [million] to well over that.” This doesn’t include promotional costs. One element that has made soundtrack albums of instrumental scores much more practical is the union’s low-budget agreement for new-use fees. These are payments to the musicians when music they have recorded for use in one medium (such as motion pictures) is used in a new medium (such as records). Originally the reuse fee per musician per 15 minutes of music was $330, which was dropped to half of that for projects selling less than 25,000 CDs, making it approximately $165. It was then lowered again to 25 percent of the original scale, or approximately $82.50 per musician per 3-hour session. The trade-off: the musicians, music preparation people, and orchestrators must be listed in the booklet, plus giving a few promotional copies to the union. One of their official orchestra names must be used as the name of the recording orchestra. Phil Ayling, president of RMA International (Recording Musicians Association) says, “In L.A. we licensed a couple of different names, The Hollywood Studio Symphony, The Los Angeles Studio Symphony, and The Recording Arts Orchestra of Los Angeles, which is the one John Williams has actually been using from time to time. The one that’s been used almost all the time except for John has been The Hollywood Studio Symphony. “It has been very, very successful in encouraging and facilitating the release of many soundtracks that otherwise would never have been feasible. Still, not every film has a soundtrack album anymore. “It used to be that everybody wanted a soundtrack,” says music supervisor Maureen Crowe. “Now, unless the music in the film adds up to something that is an enjoyable listening experience that is consistent in terms of the artists and is not such a hodgepodge of things that it’s not going to add up to anything—and also that it’s something that people are going to want to buy and listen to. You know, O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a wonderful example of a very consistent album and there was an audience and it was a word-of-mouth album, and so that’s the ideal thing. Of course, there’s always an exception to every rule, but when I hear the words, ‘It’s an eclectic soundtrack,’ that usually means no one is going to buy it because it’s not going to be enough of anything that people like. There may be one song that people like, but the rest of the songs are going to be like, ‘Oh, I don’t like those artists.’” The nineties saw a big increase in the number of soundtrack albums produced, and also sold. Everyone came to expect a soundtrack album on almost every film (typically with songs, not usually score). “In the beginning of the nineties if you sold a million it was great,” Crowe says. “If you sold two or three it was fantastic; by the end it was like you had to sell two or three million records. Just to sell a million was good, but really for the time and energy and the financial investment it was like, ‘Wow, we just killed ourselves and yeah, we made money but we made a smaller profit margin.’ “So film companies look for an opportunity that will really make sense for the film and their marketing departments.

On the track

714

Singles Singles have become less significant in the record marketplace, but not for motionpicture marketing. Whether or not an actual single is pressed and sold, specific tracks on CDs are designated as the ones to promote and to play on the air, and these are in effect singles. Costs are the same, and they are high. As Dean Pitchford sums it up, “It costs a lot to get a composer and a lyricist to write a song, then go into a studio, pay studio costs, engineer costs, tape costs, get an artist and pay him or her something, make the arrangements for the record deal to get a holdback on his next album; and then you put the single out, press the single, pay promotion costs, you pay for a video….” All to put a single in a motion picture and use it properly as a marketing tool. These budgets begin at $200,000 or $250,000 and can go way up from there to well over a million dollars. In spite of the expense, there are often marketing expectations that drive this promotional engine. It depends on the situation, says Crowe. “For a while it was considered a key marketing element to have the hit song that’s on the radio at the same time the film’s coming out. And there’s still a great desire to have that, but it has to be on the films that it makes sense on, and it has to be the right artist for the right film. I think studios and the record companies are pretty well versed in this and they’ve seen the downside of trying to force something in a film or a marketing campaign that really doesn’t work.” In many cases, there may not be a soundtrack album, so the film production company will be relying on the artist’s own record label and their album to help promote the film, which can be a risky business with the variables of schedule and other songs by that same artist being promoted. Dean Pitchford’s observations in 1986 are valid today: “There are some pictures that don’t merit songs. There are some pictures in which the tone would be disturbed. I spend as much time turning down work and talking people out of songs and soundtracks as I do doing them. I’ve sat through films where I just want the soundtrack to shut up. I want it to please stop playing me one album cut after another so that I can get into the picture. In those cases I become aware of a motion picture studio on the one hand, and a record label on the other hand, working parallel and never intersecting their interests. Unfortu nately, what happens then is you get an album and you get a movie but you don’t get the symbiosis of the two.”

MUSIC AND BUSINESS The difference between the music business and music is vast. If you confuse those two things, you’re in a lot of trouble. —Allyn Ferguson

Information about the structure and conditions of the film industry should help the reader understand how to handle his business affairs as a film composer, but it’s a tricky balance. Allyn Ferguson remembers his own attitude as he entered the field. “I didn’t know anything about the music business—I just wanted to be good.” In 1986 he said, “I

The business

715

have eight kids in my class now; they’re all functioning in the business—some of them have weekly credits, and there isn’t a kid in there who cares about being good—he cares about being successful. They’re products of a society which confuses success with excellence.” This attitude seems to have changed somewhat since then, but his comments present a real concern. The more hopeful view says that the film composer must not only be good musically and dramatically, but must be able to understand the business side and handle it well. While some composers are barely functional as business people, others learn to cope very well with the business end. And there are still others who really excel in business and take charge in a fearless, positive way, setting up their own production companies, making package deals, and soliciting special accounts. Mike Post, in recounting his career steps, recalls, “Originally I wanted to become an arranger, but I did a few freelance arranging jobs for some rock-and-roll records and I realized that the producer had control of the arranger—so I started producing records. Then when I got into that position, I thought that it’s not enough just to be a hired guy and work for this company—you’ve got to have your own company. And then you’ve got to press the business thing a little harder so that fewer people have less control over what you do. I don’t look at myself as any natural businessman. I just didn’t want anybody else to have the ultimate musical control.” In the mid-nineties Post went into business with his producer friends Steve Cannell and Steven Bochco. He has scored many of their television series, and they all wanted to create an audio postproduction facility, which they called West Wind. It’s now enlarged to audio and video postproduction, which includes three dubbing stages, ADR/Foley, and three “monster” video rooms. Reflecting on his continuing entrepreneurial tendencies, Post says, “You feel like you’re not quite at the mercy of the winds of change so much.” Taking Charge: The Composer as Entrepreneur Composer Michael Isaacson agrees with Post’s outlook, believing that musicians should not just fit into the business pattern but should more positively take charge of their lives, including investing their own money, if necessary, in recording projects, and then marketing the music directly to clients. “If one wants control over their product they have to assume the risk—that’s entrepreneurship. We should be developing people who take chances—take chances with their talent, with their money, and with their business acumen—and reap the rewards. A person can invest his own money, write his own music, record his own music and come back and make a deal and sell that music to whomever wants it, and you are free to do so. It’s your property. I’m convinced that once you start to think like an entrepreneur, possibilities open up to you that never existed before. You are not afraid to go to a publisher and suggest a project. You are not afraid to go to a library, a film house, an audiovisual house and suggest a project. You become effectual as opposed to victimized. Victimization always comes when you don’t see alternatives or when you don’t see yourself empowered to change things.”

On the track

716

EPILOGUE: ON THE TRACK I know that the impact of some of these pictures that are coming out today would be lessened considerably without the scores that they had. Sometimes they are mediocre pictures. A musical score can transform a pic-ture in an inordinate way. —Paul Wendkos, Director

It’s a shame that a lot of scores that are really, really good get lost because the film dies. —Marvin Hamlisch

With the really great writers, you can take away cues and play them, and they hold up as music. There’s musical content as well as dramatic content. —David Shire

WHILE IT IS TRUE that composing music for films may require a great deal of technique and craft, the reader should not overlook the fact that there are times when the film composer reaches beyond solid professionalism to create great and sometimes lasting works of art. When this happens, composers are as responsive as their audiences. “What I find most exciting,” John Addison said, “is when someone comes up with a really novel idea for treating a certain scene or a certain character. And I remember being absolutely knocked out years and years ago by On the Waterfront [1954] scored by Leonard Bernstein. He appeared to break a lot of rules. For instance, when the characters would kiss, he’d have no music. The music would stop before that. “As a matter of fact, I was rather impressed with the daring in the film, A Man and a Woman [composed by Francis Lai in 1966], when they had an actual lovemaking scene with a song going over it. At that time I thought, you can’t do that. This is where you have your background music doing something if you have it at all. But they had the song over it and it just worked wonderfully. “I think it’s not so much the quality of the music on its own, although that can happen, but it’s the way it actually works with the picture. When you say to yourself, ‘my God, I wish I’d thought of that!’ I think that’s what I find most exciting.” Marvin Hamlisch observes that the scores that really stay with him are the ones that intensify the entire film experience. “I love that. My favorite scores are things like High Noon [Dimitri Tiomkin, 1952], where to this day, when I look at one of those Regulator clocks, I hear that theme. I just hear that middle part. And that middle part kills you, and I

The business

717

remember it so well. I remember things like ‘Mrs. Robinson’—just seeing that shot and hearing them sing, ‘Ho-ho-ho-hey, Mrs. Robinson,’—those things intensify what’s up on that screen [The Graduate, 1967]. And they intensify them whether it’s funny and they make it even funnier, or whether it’s romantic and they make it more romantic. “To me, if you think of a film as a white room and all the walls are white, scoring is not about adding more white. Scoring is about doing something to appreciate that scene, whether you add black or blue or green or whatever. You don’t add any more white. You don’t need any more white. You add another color, or another shade of white to somehow intensify the thing that’s on the screen, and to put it into bas-relief. To bring it out of where it is, and push it out—to ‘3-D’ it, so to speak. That’s what music does, I think. And when a picture doesn’t need it, then you leave it alone. And when it does need it, that’s when you get someone who really knows what they’re doing, to make it work.” Filmmakers and composers agree that there are certain scores that have become classics. “There are certain films, if you go back in history, that I remember tremendously,” says director Richard Michaels. “The Gone with the Wind score [Max Steiner, 1939] was one of my favorites. I think all of it is beautiful. The Big Country [1958] by Jerome Moross was one of the movies from years ago that I thought had a great, great Western film score sound. That music at the beginning—the way it opened— was just thrilling and exciting!” Jerry Goldsmith and other film composers often single out seminal scores. “I think the landmarks were: Alex North’s Streetcar Named Desire [1951] with the first jazz-oriented score. It’s one of the most successful uses of jazz in a symphonic form. All of the others like “Peter Gunn” and Man with the Golden Arm came after that. And Psycho [1960] by Bernard Herrmann is still one of the greatest film scores. Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? [1966, Alex North] is a picture I wouldn’t know how to score. How do you get around that dialogue?” Alexander Courage mentions “an absolutely marvelous adventure score, [Erich] Korngold’s Adventures of Robin Hood [1938]. Franz Waxman’s A Place in the Sun [1951] was a heck of a score. The David Raksin score I’ve always loved is The Bad and the Beautiful [1952], and the way he presented ‘Laura’ [in Laura, 1944] was just gorgeous.” “East of Eden [1954], with Leonard Rosenman’s music, is a great film on every level,” says John Corigliano. “It’s like a combination of Berg and Barber and it’s beautiful, and it has a simple American melody also of pure innocence. That score is great. It’s so powerful, and in addition to that highly chromatic and nervous, wonderful sinewy beauty he also has an innocence

On the track

718

Elmer Bernstein. like Copland. It should have a symphonic version played by major orchestras.” Director Paul Wendkos was moved by a score from the more obscure Cutter’s Way (originally released as Cutter and Bone), a 1981 film with a score by Jack Nitsche. “I was deeply affected by the movie and the score, which perfectly caught the mood of the piece. It was one of the most fantastic scores I ever heard. He used a series of crystal goblets; it was an unbelievably effective score, it was so psychological, so sophisticated in terms of atonality—psychologically sophisticated.” How do film composers achieve those moments or weeks during which they are working above and beyond the craft of their profession? Elmer Bernstein shares a final thought with us: “I think with film scores, there are moments of inspiration. Strengths and things of imagination that come from sources we can’t readily identify, and then there are amazing things that happen. They aren’t necessarily once-in-a-lifetime things, but things that happen from time to time. I hear something in a score that I have never heard before—or feel I’ve never heard before—or such imagination has been brought to bear on a scene, it makes me say, ‘I wish I had thought of that’—that kind of feeling. And that makes a score very special. In my career there have been a few moments like that. There are not many, but every once in a while, and you cannot describe where you got the idea—but it happens. “Most often it’s something about the film that triggers something in some unconscious

The business

719

part of you, that sets off a whole chain of reactions that leads to something really inspirational. I think it has a lot to do with the film. Now, it could very conceivably be that some incident in the film relates to something that happened in your personal life. It may not just be actually the film. It may trigger some emotion in you. “It’s the old story, though. The music may be able to stand up very nicely outside of the film, but it’s the combination that makes a great experience—the combination of music and film.”

On the track

720

THE INTERVIEWEES AND AUTHORS THE INTERVIEWEES The following are representative credits for each of the interviewees. These credits have been selected as a sampling of the range and diversity of their work. In no case are they more than a thumbnail sketch of these individuals’ many achievements. Music executives’ titles are given as they were at the time of their interviews. The following list of abbreviations has been used: AA = Academy Award; AN=Academy Award nomination; E = Emmy; EN=Emmy nomination; DGA=Directors Guild of America Award; G=Grammy; GN=Grammy nomination; T = Tony; scr=score; orch=orchestration; adapt=adaptation; arr=arranger; lyr=lyricist; cond=conductor; m = music; md=music director; thm=theme; MP=motion picture; TV=television; ms=miniseries; s=series; ep = episodes; spr=supervisor; c=composer; exec p=executive producer; p=producer; lp=line producer; d=director; w = writer; ed=film editor; me=music editor; spr me = supervising music editor; mus sup=music supervisor; rerec mx=rerecording mixer; scr mx=scoring mixer; prerec = prerecording; sfx=sound effects. John Addison: Composer MP: Tom Jones (AA); Sleuth (AN); A Bridge Too Far (AN); Torn Curtain; The Seven Per Cent Solution. TV: “Murder, She Wrote” (E); Centennial [ms]; Ellis Island [ms]; Charles and Diana; Strange Voices; Something in Common. Pete Anthony: Orchestrator-conductor Cond-orch: Terminator III; Hulk The Core; Signs; Cats & Dogs; Atlantis: The Lost Empire; Wonder Boys; South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut; Big Daddy. Cond: SpiderMan; Red Dragon; The Bourne Identity; Men in Black II; The Sixth Sense. Phil Ayling: Musician/oboist; rank-and-file representative to various A.F. of M. (American Federation of Musicians) contract negotiations. Member of the RMA-Los Angeles board since the mid-eighties and the vice president for Motion Picture and TV since the late nineties. President, RMA International since 2000. Has played on about 5,000 TV episodes and 800 MPs, including Schindler’s List; Back to the Future; Castaway; Titanic; Toy Story; The Lion King; Catch Me If You Can. Burt Bacharach: Composer-songwriter MP: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (2 AAs/scr and song: “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”); Grace of My Heart (song “God Give Me Strength”); Arthur (AA/song: “Best That You Can Do”); Arthur on the Rocks; Night Shift (including song: “That’s What Friends Are For”); What’s New, Pussycat? (AN/ song); After the Fox. TV: “Burt Bacharach Special” (E). Bob Badami: Music editor-music supervisor

The business

721

Black Hawk Down [mus sup]; [me]: Antz; Pearl Harbor; Darkman; Crimson Title; Clifford; Black Beauty; Sommersby; Broadcast News; Star Trek II and III; Edward Scissorhands; Batman; Beverly Hills Cop I and II; Top Gun; American Gigolo; St. Elmo s Fire; Cat People; Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure; Thief John Barry: Composer MP: Out of Africa (AA); James Bond films [many]; Body Heat; Born Free (2 AAs/scr and song); The Lion in Winter (AA); Mercury Rising; Chaplin; Dances with Wolves (AA); Peggy Sue Got Married; Somewhere in Time. TV: Eleanor and Franklin [ms] (EN); Love Among the Ruins. Christophe Beck: Composer MP: American Weddings; Confidence; The Tuxedo; Just Married; Big Fat Liar; Stealing Harvard; Slap Her, She’s French. TV: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” [some ep, season 2; all ep, season 3, 4] (E; EN/md). Steve Bedell: Music executive Formerly vice president of music, Paramount Pictures Corp.; formerly vice president of publishing for Casablanca Records. Has worked on many films, including Footloose; The Untouchables; Beverly Hills Cop II; Fatal Attraction; Terms of Endearment; Witness; Star Trek; Pretty in Pink; Top Gun; Ferris Bueller’s Day Off; Best of the Best 2 and 3 [mus sup]. David Bell: Composer MP: Final Justice. TV: [episodes]: “Enterprise”; “Star Trek: Voyager”; “Murder, She Wrote”; “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”; “In the Heat of the Night”; “Simon and Simon”; “Whiz Kids”; Dead Man’s Walk [ms] (EN); The Return of the Shaggy Dog; Killing at Hell’s Gate. Alan and Marilyn Bergman: Lyricists MP: Yentl (AA/song, scr); The Way We Were (AA/song); The Thomas Crown Affair (AA/song: “The Windmills of Your Mind”); Best Friends (AN/song: “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?”); Happy Endings (AN/song: “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?”); In the Heat of the Night (AN/song); Sabrina (AN/song). TV: Queen of the Stardust Ballroom (E); “Maude”; “Good Times”; “Alice.” Charles Bernstein: Composer MP: Picnic; Dudes; The Entity; Love at First Bite; Nightmare on Elm Street; Cujo; Gator; Outlaw Blues. TV: Enslavement: The True Story of Fanny Kemble (EN); The Sea Wolf (EN); Sadat [ms], Little Miss Perfect (E); The Long Island Incident; The Long Hot Summer; Scruples; Bogie; House on Garibaldi Street; Winds of Kitty Hawk. Elmer Bernstein: Composer MP: The Man with the Golden Arm (AN); The Ten Commandments; The Magnificent Seven (AN); To Kill a Mockingbird (AN); Hawaii (2 AN); Thoroughly Modern Millie (AA); Animal House; Airplane!; Trading Places (AN); Ghostbusters; The Age of

On the track

722

Innocence (AN); Keeping the Faith; Far from Heaven. TV: The Making of a President— 1960 (E); Captains and Kings (EN); Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. Pieter Bourke: Composer MP: Ali; The Insider; Nadro. Written and recorded numerous albums and e.p.’s as a founding member of the groups Eden (1989–1993) and Soma (1993–2003). Cowrote and recorded the album Duality with Lisa Gerrard (1998). Toured extensively as percussionist and keyboard player for Lisa Gerrard’s “Mirror Pool” Tour (1995) and Dead Can Dance’s “Spiritchaser” Tour (1996). Bruce Broughton: Composer MP: Silverado (AN); Lost in Space; Shadow Conspiracy; Tombstone; Harry and the Hendersons; Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey; Young Sherlock Holmes (GN); Honey, I Blew up the Kid; The Boy Who Could Fly. TV: O Pioneers! (E); Glory & Honor (E); The First Olympics [ms] (E); “Dallas” [ep] (2 Es); “Buck Rogers” [ep] (E); The Blue and the Gray [ms] (EN); George Washington II [ms]; “JAG” [thm] (EN). John Burnett: Film editor MP: The Way We Were; Grease; The Wild Rovers; And Justice for All; The Owl and the Pussycat; The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter; Murder by Death. TV: The Winds of War [ms]; War and Remembrance [ms]. John Cacavas: Composer MP: Airport 1975; Airport ’77; King of Comedy [source music]; Playing with Fire. TV: Perfect Murder, Perfect Town; Murder in Paradise; Executioner’s Song; Death in California; Dirty Dozen IV; “Kojack” [all ep] (EN); “Mrs. Columbo” [thm, ep]; “Eischied” [thm, ep] (EN); “Quincy” [ep], The Gangster Chronicles [ms]. Brendon Cahill: Music executive Former vice president, Universal Television Music and Home Video (1980–87). Formerly music supervisor, Columbia Pictures TV (1974–79); director of Music/Universal (1979); MP: E.T.; Back to the Future; Somewhere in Time. TV: “Miami Vice”; “Equalizer”; “Simon & Simon.” Sean Callery: Composer TV: “24” [all ep] (EN); “Sheena” [thm, ep]; “Blowback” [thm, ep]; “La Femme Nikita” [ep]; “Freedom” [ep]; A Mom for Christmas; “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” [sfx ed] (EN). MP: Se7en [assist sfx ed]; Worked for New England Digital (representing the Synclavier) between 1988 and 1992. David Campbell: Music rerecording mixer MP: Pay It Forward; The Matrix (AA); White Oleander; The Perfect Storm (AN); Lethal Weapon 4; Legends of the Fall (AN); Stand by Me; Footloose; Prizzi s Honor; Spinal Tap; Risky Business; Airplane! TV: The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd (E); An Early Frost (E); Peter the Great [ms]; “Hill Street Blues”; The Burning Bed; Call to Glory; Marco Polo [ms].

The business

723

Daniel Allan Carlin: Music editor Chairman/CEO of Segue Music (with partner and president Jeff Carson). MP: Like Mike [spr me]; RoboCop; Three Men and a Baby; Lethal Weapon; Ghostbusters; Stand by Me; Witness; Purple Rain; Platoon; The Secret of My Success; Airplane!; Annie; Officer and a Gentleman [cond]. TV: Under Siege (E); [by Segue]: Peter the Great (EN); “Hill Street Blues” (EN); “Moonlighting”; “St. Elsewhere” (EN); “Crime Story.” Johnny Caruso: Music editor-composer MP: [me]: Cold Creak Manor; Unfaithful; Uprising; The Rookie; Joy Ride; Say It Isn’t So; It Had to Be You; For Love of the Game; Virus. [scr]: Mojave Moon; Dream a Little Dream 2. Bodie Chandler: Music executive Vice president of Music, Columbia Pictures Television (1983–87). B.A. from UCLA music school. Formerly music director/ American International Pictures (1975–78); Music Director/ Lorimar (1978–83). MP: [mus sup]: S.O.B.; The Big Red One; California Dreaming. Jeff Charbonneau: Music editor MP: It Had to Be You; Crazy in Alabama; X-Files: Fight the Future; Seven Years in Tibet; Mo’ Money; Barb Wire; Born to Be Wild; I’m Gonna Git You Sucka; Hairspray. TV: “X-Files” (2 Es, 6 ENs); “24”; “Millennium” (EN); The Day Lincoln Was Shot; Night Sins [ms] (EN). Bill Conti: Composer MP: The Right Stuff (AA); Rocky (AN/song); Rocky II, III and V; For Your Eyes Only (AN/song,); The Thomas Crown Affair; Spy Hard; Karate Kid I, II and III; Broadcast News; Private Benjamin; Lean on Me. TV: North and South [ms] (EN); North and South II [ms] (E); Academy Awards Show [md 15 times] (2 Es); “Dynasty” [thm]; “Cagney & Lacey” [thm]; “Falcon Crest” [thm]. John Corigliano: Composer Pulitzer prize in music (2001), Symphony No. 2 for String Orchestra. MP: The Red Violin (AA); Altered States (AN); Revolution (British Film Institute Award). Concert works: Clarinet Concerto; Fantasia on an Ostinato; Pied Piper Fantasy—Concerto for Flute and Orchestra; Creations for Orchestra and Narrator; Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra. Alexander Courage: Composer-orchestrator MP: Superman IV [adapt]; [orch]: Hollow Man; The Mummy; Jurassic Park; Star Trek: Insurrection; Basic Instinct; Lionheart; The Poseidon Adventure; The Agony and the Ecstasy; Doctor Dolittle [orch/arr] (AN with L. Newman); Fiddler on the Roof; My Fair Lady; Porgy and Bess; Gigi; Showboat; Guys and Dolls. TV: “Star Trek” [thm and ep]; “The Waltons” [ep]. Maureen Crowe: Music supervisor

On the track

724

MP: Uptown Girls; A Guy Thing; The Banger Sisters; Juwanna Mann; American Outlaws; Heartbreakers; The Replacements; The Perfect Storm; True Romance; The Bodyguard; Wayne’s World; Look Who’s Talking Too. Don Davis: Composer MP: The Matrix Revolutions; The Matrix Reloaded; The Matrix; Behind Enemy Lines; Jurassic Park III [new music]; House on Haunted Hill; Bound. TV: Murder in Greenwich; Weapons of Mass Distraction; “SeaQuest DSV”[ep] (E/EN); “Beauty and the Beast”[ep] (E/EN); House of Frankenstein (EN); A Little Piece of Heaven (EN); The Beast; Pandora’s Clock; Lies before Kisses (EN). John Debney: Composer MP: The Hot Chick; Swimfan; The Scorpion King; Dragonfly; Snow Dogs; Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius; The Princess Diaries; Cats & Dogs; Heartbreakers; Spy Kids; The Emperor s New Groove; End of Days; Inspector Gadget; Paulie; Cutthroat Island; White Fang 2. TV: “The Pretender” [1st season thm]; “SeaQuest DS V”[thm] (E); “The Cape” (E); “The Young Riders” (E). Brad Dechter: Orchestrator MP: The Princess Diaries; Atlantis: The Lost Empire; Vertical Limit; Unbreakable; Dinosaur; Snow Falling on Cedars; The Sixth Sense; Runaway Bride; Paulie; The Devil’s Advocate; Liar Liar; Primal Fear; Restoration; Cutthroat Island; Waterworld; Wyatt Earp; The Fugitive; Dave; The Last of the Mohicans; Grand Canyon; The Man in the Moon; City Slickers; Pretty Woman. Sandy De Crescent: Music contractor Universal Studios music contractor since 1969; plus many films as an independent contractor. MP: Minority Report; A Beautiful Mind; Monsters, Inc.; Training Day; A.I. Artificial Intelligence; Stuart Little; The Sixth Sense; Titanic; The American President; Forrest Gump; Speed; Schindler’s List; Sister Act; Grand Canyon; Jaws; The Sting; Out of Africa. Georges Delerue: Composer MP: Platoon; A Little Romance (AA); Biloxi Blues; Salvador; Agnes of God (AN); Julia (AN); The Day of the Dolphin (AN); Anne of the Thousand Days (AN); Silkwood; The Conformist; Jules and Jim; Shoot the Piano Player; Hiroshima mon amour. TV: Stone Pillow; A Time to Live; The Execution; Silence of the Heart. Dennis Dreith: Composer-union activist Chief executive officer/administrator, Film Musicians Secondary Market Fund; RMA president emeritus. MP: The Punisher; Purple People Eater. TV: Columbo: Columbo Cries Wolf; Daniel and the Towers; “Once a Hero”[ep]. Recording: The O’Jays. Anne Dudley: Composer MP: A Man Apart; Tabloid; Pushing Tin; American History X; The Full Monty (AA); The Crying Game; Buster. TV: The Miracle Maker; The Tenth Kingdom [ms]; Jeeves

The business

725

and Wooster. Randy Edelman: Composer-songwriter MP: XXX; National Security; Shanghai Noon; The Whole Nine Yards; Dragonheart; Beethoven’s 2nd; Gettysburg; My Cousin Vinny; Kindergarten Cop; Executive Action; Slow Dancing in the Big City [lyr], Feds. TV: “MacGyver” [thm, ep]. Songs: “Weekend in New England.” John Erman: Director TV: Victoria & Albert; Scarlett [ms]; Alex Haley’s Queen [ms]; Roots (DGA and EN); Who Will Love My Children? (E); Streetcar Named Desire (w); An Early Frost (DGA and EN); Moviola [ms] (EN); Roots: The Next Generation [ms]; The Two Mrs. Grenvilles; David. Allyn Ferguson: Composer MP: Avalanche Express. TV: Shadow of a Doubt; High Noon; Camille (E); Ivanhoe (EN); The Woman He Loved; April Morning (EN); Les Miserables; Man in the Iron Mask; Master of the Game [ms] (EN); “Charlie’s Angels” [thm]; “Barney Miller” [thm]. Robert Fernandez: Recording mixer/music rerecording mixer MP: [Music mixer]: I Spy; Blood Work; Country Bears; My Big Fat Greek Wedding; The Shipping News; High Fidelity; The Insider; The Hurricane; Lethal Weapon 4; Murder at 1600; Star Trek: Generations; Beetlejuice; Lethal Weapon; Ghostbusters. [Rerec mx] Frida; Changing Lanes; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Sleepy Hollow; Gremlins; The Long Riders. TV: “Sinatra” (EN/rerec mx). Charles Fox: Composer MP: The Gods Must Be Crazy II; Nine to Five; Foul Play (AN/ song: “Ready to Take a Chance Again”); The Other Side of the Mountain (AN/song,); Goodbye Columbus. TV: “Love American Style” (E/song; EN/scr); “Love Boat” [thm]; “The Paper Chase” (EN/song); “Happy Days” [thm]. Songs: “Killing Me Softly with His Song”; “I Got a Name.” Gerarld Fried: Composer MP: Birds Do It, Bees Do It (AN). TV: Roots [ms] (E); Roots: The Next Generation [ms]; Mystic Warrior [ms] (EN), Moviola (EN); Gauguin in Tahiti (EN); I Will Fight No More Forever; Dear Mr. Gable; Son-Rise; “Star Trek” [ep]; “Mission: Impossible” [ep], “Police Story” [ep]; “Gunsmoke” [ep]. Lisa Gerrard: Composer MP: Whale Rider; Ali (w/Pieter Bourke); Coil; Gladiator (AN, w/Hans Zimmer); The Insider (w/Pieter Bourke); Nadro. Coleader of Dead Can Dance. Norman Gimbel: Lyricist MP: Georgia; Norma Rae (AA/song: “It Goes Like it Goes”); Foul Play (AN/song: “Ready to Take a Chance Again”); The Other Side of the Mountain (AN/song). TV: “The Paper Chase” (W); “Happy Days”; “Laverne & Shirley”; “Love American

On the track

726

Style” (E); “Love Boat.” Songs: “Killing Me Softly with His Song”; “I Got a Name”; “Girl from Ipanema.” Elliot Goldenthal: Composer MP: S.W.A. T.; Frida (AN); Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within; Titus; In Dreams; The Butcher Boy; Interview with the Vampire (AN); Batman 6- Robin; Michael Collins (AN); A Time to Kill; Heat; Batman Forever; Cobb. Jerry Goldsmith: Composer MP: The Sum of All Fears; The Last Castle; L.A. Confidential (AN); Rudy; Basic Instinct (AN); Hoosiers (AN); Total Recall; The Russia House; The Omen (AA); Patton (AN); Star Trek—the Motion Picture (AN); Planet of the Apes (AN); Alien; Poltergeist (AN); The Wind and the Lion (AN). TV: “Star Trek: Voyager” [thm] (E); Masada [ms] (E); Babe (E); QB-VII [ms] (E); The Red Pony (E). William Goldstein: Composer MP: Urban Mythology; Saving Grace; Hello Again; Up the Creek; Eye for an Eye; The Bingo Long Traveling All-Star and Motor Kings. TV: The Miracle Worker; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court; Ocean Quest; Liberty; Six Against the Rock; “Fame” [ep] (EN); “Happy Endings” [song] (EN); “Omnibus” [thm, ep] (EN); “Twilight Zone” [ep]. James Goldstone: Director MP: Winning; Roller Coaster; Red Sky at Morning. TV: The Bride in Black; The Sun Also Rises; Kent State (E); Calamity Jane; Studs Lonigan [ms]; Clear and Present Danger; Earth* Star Voyager [ms], “Star Trek” pilot; “Ironsides” pilot. Gordon Goodwin: Composer-orchestrator MP: [orch]: Star Trek: Nemesis; Remember the Titans; Enemy of the State; Deep Blue Sea; Armageddon; Con Air; Jack Frost. [scr]: The Majestic; My Brother’s War; Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! TV: [c]: “The Other Half” [thm]; “Animaniacs” (E); “Pinky and the Brain” (E); “Warner Brothers’ Histeria!” (E); “The Legend of Tarzan” [ep]; “Road Rovers” [ep]; “Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries [ep].” Michael Gore: Composer-songwriter MP: Fame (2 AAs/scr and song, “Fame”); Terms of Endearment (AN); Pretty in Pink. Richard and Ron Grant: Co-inventors, The Auricle. Authors and designers of Auricle: The Film Composers’ Time Processor. Recent Auricle credits include: Lord of the Rings I & II; Harry Potter I & II; The Matrix; Spider-Man; Braveheart; A.I. Artificial Intelligence; Star Trek: Nemesis; Ice Age; Dreamcatcher; Maid in Manhattan; The Core; Final Destination II; Signs; Ti-tanic; Minority Report; The American President. TV: “The Simpsons.” John (Johnny) Green: Composer, general music director and executive in charge of Music, MGM (1949–58). MP: Raintree County; American in Paris (AA/adapt); West Side Story (AA/adapt);

The business

727

Oliver! (AA/adapt); Easter Parade (AA/adapt); They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (AN/adapt); Fiesta; Royal Wedding. Songs: “Body and Soul”; “I Cover the Waterfront”; “I’m Yours.” Harry Gregson-Williams: Composer MP: Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas; Shrek 2; Passionada; Tortoise vs. Hare; Spy Game; Shrek (w/John Powell); Spy Kids; King of the Jungle; Chicken Run (w/John Powell); The Tigger Movie; Antz (w/John Powell); The Replacement Killers; The Borrowers; The Rock. Marvin Hamlisch: Composer MP: The Way We Were (2 AAs/scr and song); The Sting (AA/ adapt); The Spy Who Loved Me (AN/scr and song: “Nobody Does It Better”); Little Nikita; Sophie’s Choice (AN); Ice Castles, Romantic Comedy; Seems Like Old Times. TV: “Timeless: Live in Concert” (E/md); “Barbra Streisand: The Concert” (E/md); A Streetcar Named Desire; The Two Mrs. Grenvilles. Musical Theater: A Chorus Line (T); They’re Playing Our Song; Smile. Jack Hayes: Orchestrator MP: The Way We Were; The Elephant Man; The Natural; Spaceballs; Sophie’s Choice; High Anxiety. [With Leo Shuken]: How the West Was Won; The Magnificent Seven; Camelot; The Greatest Story Ever Told; Casino Royale. James Horner: Composer MP: A Beautiful Mind (AN); The Mask of Zorro; Titanic (AAs/ scr and song: “My Heart Will Go On” [G]); Apollo 13 (AN); Braveheart (AN); An American Tail: Fievel Goes West; Glory (G); Field of Dreams (AN); Star Trek II and III; Aliens (AN); Batteries Not Included; An American Tail (AN/song and G/song of the year, 1987: “Somewhere Out There”); Willow; Project X; 48 Hours; Cocoon. TV: Angel Dusted; A Piano for Mrs. Cimino. Michael Horner: Agent/business affairs executive Formerly a professional musician, Michael Horner is an agent and Head of Business Affairs at Soundtrack Music Associates (SMA), representing composers, music supervisors, record producers, and songwriters worldwide. He began at Bart-Milander Associates, eventually becoming partner in a successor company prior to his association with SMA. James Newton Howard: Composer MP: Dreamcatcher; The Palace Thief; Signs; America’s Sweethearts; Atlantis: The Lost Empire; Vertical Limit; Unbreakable; Dinosaur; Snow Falling on Cedars; The Sixth Sense; Runaway Bride; My Best Friend’s Wedding (AN); Primal Fear; Restoration; The Prince of Tides (AN); Wyatt Earp; The Fugitive (AN); Dave; Grand Canyon; The Man in the Moon; Pretty Woman; The Devil’s Advocate. TV: “ER” [thm] (EN). Michael Isaacson: Composer-orchestrator

On the track

728

MP: National Lampoon’s ‘s European Vacation [orch]; Billy Jack Goes to Washington [orch]. TV: “Bionic Woman” [ep]; “Hawaii Five-0” [ep]; Mystic Warrior [orch]; Casablanca [orch]; Hollywood: The Gift of Laughter [orch]; “Hart to Hart” [orch]. Gerald Isenberg: Producer MP: Clan of the Cave Bear; Let the Good Times Roll. TV: [former executive in charge of production/ABC-TV]; The Execution of Raymond Graham [exec p]; A Time to Triumph; The Defection of Simas Kuairka [exec p]; Fame pilot [exec p]. Maurice Jarre: Composer MP: A Walk in the Clouds; Ghost (AN); Jacob’s Ladder; Dead Poets Society; Lawrence of Arabia (AA); Doctor Zhivago (AA); Ryan’s Daughter; Fatal Attraction; Witness (AN); Gorillas in the Mist (AN); No Way Out; Mad Max beyond Thunderdome; A Passage to India (AA); The Mosquito Coast; The Tin Drum. TV: Shogun [ms]; Jesus of Nazareth [ms]. Will Jennings: Lyricist MP: A Beautiful Mind (lyr: “All Love Can Be”); The Mask of Zorro (lyr: “I Want to Spend My Lifetime Loving You”); Titanic (lyricist: AA/“My Heart Will Go On”); Rush; An American Tail: Fievel Goes West; Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night; Splash (lyr: “Love Came for Me”); An Officer and a Gentleman (lyr: “Up Where We Belong”); The Competition (lyr: “People Alone”). Laura Karpman: Composer MP: The Annihilation of Fish; The Breakup; Lover’s Knot; American Slices. TV: Taken [ms]; “Odyssey 5” [thm, ep]; Carrie; Within These Walls; Dash and Lilly; “The Living Edens” [thm, ep]; A Woman of Independent Means [ms]; Run the Wild Fields. Rick Kline: Music rerecording mixer MP: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones; K-PAX; Enemy at the Gates; Almost Famous; Snow Falling on Cedars; The Mummy (AN); U-571 (AN); Go; Payback; Air Force One (AN); My Best Friend’s Wedding; Mississippi Burning (AN); The American President; Crimson Title (AN); Wyatt Earp; Tombstone; In the Line of Fire; Grand Canyon; Days of Thunder (AN); The Godfather: Part III; Field of Dreams; Beverly Hills Cop I and II; Silverado. Robert Kraft: Music executive/composer Chief executive of Fox Music Inc. since 1994; president since 1998. MP: soundtracks include: Titanic; Waiting to Exhale; Romeo & Juliet; The Full Monty; Soul Food; Hope Floats; Dr. Dolittle; Bulworth; Anastasia; Moulin Rouge! CD: [co-p] The Little Mermaid; Swing Kids; Muppet Christmas Carol (2 GNs/ p]. The Mambo Kings (AA/G song); Hudson Hawk (scr w/ Michael Kamen); Seven Minutes in Heaven [scr]. Doug LeBow: Composer/orchestrator/music preparation MP: [orch]: Long Day’s Journey into Night. TV: “General Hospital” (md/spr 1998– 2002); EXTRA! (c); [orch]: Static Shock; Desperate Justice; No Greater Love; Pen Pals;

The business

729

The Song Spinner. Documentaries: [c]: The Great Bear Rain Forest; The Ocean Floor; Messengers. Music Prep: 2nd edition On the Track; Outlaw Justice; Wild Things; Air Bud. Gary LeMel: Music executive President, Worldwide Music, Warner Bros. Pictures; formerly head of Columbia Pictures Music (1983) and senior vice president and head of A&R of Boardwalk Entertainment. MP soundtracks include: Harry Potter 1 and 2; The Matrix 1, 2, and 3. Batman 1, 2, 3, and 4; The Bodyguard; A Walk to Remember; Romeo Must Die; City of Angels; Space Jam; A.I. Artificial Intelligence; The Big Chill; St. Elmo s Fire; Stand and Deliver. Erma Levin: Music editor MP: Wait until Dark; The Taking of Pelham One Two Three; ‘night, Mother; Papillon; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; The Spiral Staircase; I Remember Mama; The Wild One; The Green Berets. TV: Paris Trout (EN); Queen of the Stardust Ballroom; Do You Remember Love? Harry Lojewski: Music executive Former vice president of Motion Picture and Television Music, MGM/UA Communications (through 1987); with MGM from 1954–87; formerly executive director of music (1973). Don MacDougall: Music recording mixer/music rerecording mixer MP: Star Wars (AA); Close Encounters of the Third Kind (AN), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (AN); Funny Lady (AN); Patton (AN); The Godfather (AN), Thief. TV: Eleanor and Frank-lin; “Dynasty”; “Beauty and the Beast” (E). Mark Mancina: Composer MP: Brother Bear; Domestic Disturbance; Training Day; Bait; Tarzan; Return to Paradise; Speed 2: Cruise Control; Con Air; Moll Flanders; Twister; Bad Boys; Jetsons: The Movie. TV: “The Outer Limits” [thm]; From the Earth to the Moon, Pt. II [ms]; “Soldier of Fortune, Inc.” Henry Mancini: Composer MP: The Pink Panther (AN); Days of Wine and Roses (AA/song); Breakfast at Tiffany’s (AAs/scr and song: “Moon River”); Victor/ Victoria (AA); 10 (AN); Wait until Dark; Two for the Road; Charade; That’s Entertainment; That’s Life! (AN/song); Without a Clue; Touch of Evil TV: The Thorn Birds [ms] (EN); “Remington Steele” [thm]; “Newhart” [thm]; “Peter Gunn” [thm, ep]. Johnny Mandel: Composer MP: M*A*S*H (including song: “Suicide is Painless”); Being There; Deathtrap; The Verdict; The Sandpiper (AA/song: “The Shadow of Your Smile”); The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!; I Want to Live!; The Americanization of Emily. TV: “M*A*S*H” [thm, ep]; LBJ: The Early Years. Gene Marks: Music editor

On the track

730

With Warner Bros. 1966–85. MP: Spaceballs; Dirty Harry; Blazing Saddles; My Fair Lady; Camelot; Finian’s ‘s Rainbow. TV: Roots: The Next Generation [ms]; Dream West [ms]. John Martinelli: Film editor MP: The Boss’s Wife; Hard Country. TV: James A. Michener’s Texas; World War II: When Lions Roared; A Season in Purgatory; Murder in Texas (E); The Defection of Simas Kudirka (E); The Legend of Lizzie Borden (E); AD. Anno Domini [ms] [ed/lp] (EN). Mark McKenzie: Orchestrator MP: Sum of All Fears; Stuart Little II; Spider-Man; Planet of the Apes; Along Came a Spider; The Patriot; Stuart Little; Men in Black; Mission: Impossible; Star Trek: Generations; Beethoven’s 2nd; Heart and Souls; Sister Act; Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country; City Slickers [cond/orch]; Kindergarten Cop; The Boy Who Could Fly; Young Sherlock Holmes. Michael Melvoin: Composer MP: Big Town; King of the Mountain; Main Event; Ashanti. TV: The David Cassidy Story; Aspen; Search for Houdini; Return of the Rebels; The Last Survivors; “Fame”[ep]; “MacGyver” [ep]; “Buck Rogers”[ep]; “Lou Grant” [ep]; “Baretta” [ep]. Alan Meyerson: Music recording engineer MP: The Last Samurai; Black Hawk Down; i am sam; Shrek; Gladiator; Antz; Armageddon; Speed; Pearl Harbor; The Bourne Identity; Drumline; K19: The Widow Maker; The Thin Red Line; Spy Game; Spy Kids 1 and 2; The Prince of Egypt. Richard Michaels: Director MP: Blue Skies Again. TV: Sadat [ms], Scared Straight: Another Story; Silence of the Heart; Once an Eagle [ms]; Berlin Tunnel 21; Homeward Bound; The Plutonium Incident. John Morris: Composer MP: Dirty Dancing [scr]; Ironweed; The Elephant Man (AN); Blazing Saddles (AN/song); Spaceballs; Young Frankenstein; Silent Movie; The Woman in Red; The Producers; Clue; High Anxiety. TV: “Anne Bancroft Special #2” (E); “S’Lemmon, S’Gershwin, S’Wonderful” (E); Fresno [ms]; Splendor in the Grass. Peter Nashel: Composer MP: The Trials of Henry Kissinger; The Deep End. TV: Report from Ground Zero. Commercials: Nashel’s Duotone Audio Group has done hundereds of projects from Nike and Reebok to Jaguar and Martini & Rossi, working for the leading advertising agencies of the world. Record production: Duncan Sheik; Ivy; Ben Lee. Ira Newborn: Composer MP: Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult; Ace Ventura: Pet Detective; Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear; Ferris Bueller’s Day Off; Dragnet; The Naked Gun; Sixteen Candles;

The business

731

Weird Science; All Night Long; Wise Guys; Into the Night. TV: “Police Squad” [thm, ep]; “SCTV” [thm]. Randy Newman: Composer-songwriter MP: Seabiscuit; Monsters, Inc. (AA/song: “If I Didn’t Have You”); Monsters, Inc. (AN); Toy Story 2 (AN/song: “When She Loved Me”; a bug’s life (AN); Pleasantville (AN); James and the Giant Peach (AN); Toy Story (AN/song: “You’ve Got a Friend”); Parenthood (AN/song: “I Love to See You Smile”); Maverick; Babe: Pig in the City (AN/song: “That’ll Do”); Awakenings; Avalon (AN); Parenthood; The Natural (AN); Ragtime (AN). TV: “Cop Rock” [thm, ep] (E). Thomas Newman: Composer MP: Finding Nemo; White Oleander; Road to Perdition (AN); Pay It Forward; Erin Brockovich; The Green Mile; American Beauty (AN); The Horse Whisperer; The People vs. Larry Flynt; How to Make an American Quilt; Unstrung Heroes (AN); Little Women (AN); Shawshank Redemption (AN); Scent of a Woman; The Player; Fried Green Tomatoes; Desperately Seeking Susan. TV: “Six Feet Under” [thm]. Alex North: Composer MP: AA honorary award (1986); Under the Volcano (AN); Prizzi’s Honor; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (AN); A Streetcar Named Desire (AN); The Agony and the Ecstasy (AN); Spartacus (AN); Viva Zapata! (AN); The Rose Tattoo (AN); Death of a Salesman (AN); Unchained; The Rainmaker (AN). TV: Rich Man, Poor Man [ms] (E); Death of a Salesman (EN). Gordon Parks: Director-composer MP: Shaft [d]; Leadbelly [d]; The Learning Tree [d/c]; Shaft’s Big Score [d/c]; The Odyssey of Solomon Northup [d/c]. Dean Pitchford: Lyricist-writer MP: Bandits (song: “Holding out for a Hero”); Fame (AA/song); Footloose [lyr/w] (2 ANs/song). Songs: “Fame”; “Footloose”; “Let’s Hear It for the Boy”; “Almost Paradise”; “Dancing in the Sheets.” Mike Post: Composer MP: Running Brave; The River Rat. TV: [thm, ep]: “Law & Order: Crime & Punishment”; “Law &; Order: Criminal Intent”; “Murder One” (E/thm); “NYPD Blue” (EN/thm); “Law & Order”; “Hill Street Blues”; “L.A. Law; “Rockford Files”; “Magnum, P.I.”; “A-Team”; “Greatest American Hero”; Adam. John Powell: Composer MP: The Italian Job; Good Omens; D- Tox; i am sam; Rat Race; Evolution; Shrek (w/Harry Gregson-Williams); Chicken Run (w/ Gregson-Williams); The Road to El Dorado; Antz (w/Gregson-Williams); Face/Off Jonathan Price: Composer MP: Avatar; Rustin; Sammyville; Dog Story. TV: The Ultimate 10; “Movie Magic”;

On the track

732

“Fast Food Films.” Synth score production: The Core; The Shipping News. Soundtrack CD production: The Glass House; Bandits; Sweet November; The Country Bears. Scoring engineer/mixer: Shade. Trevor Rabin: Composer MP: Bad Boys II; Kangaroo Jack; Homegrown; Whispers; The Banger Sisters; Bad Company; Texas Rangers; The One; Rock Star; American Outlaws; The Sixth Day; Remember the Titans; Gone in Sixty Seconds; Deep Blue Sea; Jack Frost; Enemy of the State; Armageddon; Con Air. TV: “Soldier of Fortune, Inc.” [thm]. Member of Yes for 14 years. John Reitz: Dialogue rerecording mixer MP: Pay It Forward; Proof of Life; The Matrix (AA); The Perfect Storm (AN); Lethal Weapon 4; Conspiracy Theory; Executive Decision; Days of Heaven; Footloose; Buckaroo Banzai; Risky Business; Soul Man; Stand by Me; Prizzi’s Honor. TV: An Early Frost (E); The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd (E); Shogun [ms]; Dream West [ms]; Peter the Great [ms]; Anastasia [ms]; Call to Glory. Graeme Revell: Composer MP: Daredevil; High Crimes; Collateral Damage; Lara Croft: Tomb Raider; Human Nature; Blow; Red Planet; The Seige; Bride of Chucky; The Saint; TV: Dune [ms]; Anne Frank. John Richards: Recording mixer MP: Payback; Rush Hour; Grand Canyon; The Little Mermaid; When Harry Met Sally…; The Spy Who Loved Me; White Nights; The Omen; Gandhi; Octopussy; Revenge of the Pink Panther; Victor/Victoria; Murder on the Orient Express. Laurence Rosenthal: Composer MP: Becket (AN); Man of La Mancha (AN/adapt); Return of a Man Called Horse; Who’ll Stop the Rain?; The Miracle Worker. TV: Master Spy: The Robert Hanssen Story; Anastasia [ms] (E); Peter the Great [ms] (E); Michelangelo: The Last Giant (E); Who Will Love My Children? (EN); Mussolini: The Untold Story [ms]; “Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies” (E); “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Travels with Father” (E). Arthur B. Rubinstein: Composer MP: WarGames; Stakeout; Blue Thunder; Whose Lift Is It Anyway?; Lost in America. TV: “Scarecrow & Mrs. King” (E); The Betty Ford Story; Portrait of a Rebel: Margaret Sanger; “The Wizard” [thm, ep]; Roses Are for the Rich [ms]; Bitter Creek; Once upon a Train. Craig Safan: Composer MP: Operation Splitsville; Major Payne; Stand and Deliver; Remo Williams; The Last Starfighter; Lady Beware; The Legend of Billie Jean; Corvette Summer. TV: “Life Goes On” (EN/song); “Pearl”; “Cheers” [all ep]; Courage; Timestalkers; “Amazing

The business

733

Stories” [ep]; “Twilight Zone” [ep]; “Hitchcock Presents” [ep]; “Call to Glory” [ep]. Dennis Sands: Recording mixer MP: Finding Nemo; Chicago; Red Dragon; Stuart Little 2; Men in Black 2; Spider-Man; Planet of the Apes; Legally Blonde; American Beauty; Pleasantville; My Best Friend’s Wedding; Rosewood; Contact (AN); Cast Away (AN); The American President; While You Were Sleeping; The Shawshank Redemption; Forrest Gump (AN); Gettysburg; The Last of the Mohicans; Back to the Future Part III [also rerec mx]; Who Framed Roger Rabbit. David Seltzer: Director-writer MP: Dragonfly [w]; The Omen [w]; Punchline [d/w]; Lucas [d/ w]; The Other Side of the Mountain [w]. TV: Green Eyes [w]; Larry [w]. Edward Shearmur: Composer MP: Johnny English; Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle; Reign of Fire; The Sweetest Thing; The Count of Monte Cristo; K-PAX; The Brightness You Keep; Miss Congeniality; Charlie’s Angels; Whatever It Takes; Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her; Jakob the Liar; Cruel Intentions; Species II; The Wings of the Dove; The Butcher Boy [cond]. David Shire: Composer MP: Ash Wednesday; Norma Rae (AA/song: “It Goes Like It Goes”); The Promise (AN); Short Circuit; Return to Oz; Saturday Night Fever; 2010; The Taking of Pelham One Two Three; All the President’s Men; The Conversation. TV: Rear Window (EN); Last Stand at Saber River; Sarah, Plain and Tall; Do You Remember Love? (EN); Raid on Entebbe (EN); Musical Theater: Baby. Howard Shore: Composer MP: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers; The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (AA); Panic Room; The Score; The Cell; The Yards; High Fidelity; Dogma; Analyze This; eXistenZ; The Game; Looking for Richard; Se7ev; The Client; Philadelphia; Mrs. Doubtfire; M. Butterfly; Single White Female; Prelude to a Kiss; Naked Lunch; The Silence of the Lambs; Dead Ringers; Big; The Fly; After Hours. TV: “Saturday Night Live.” Paul Shure: Musician (concertmaster) Formerly concertmaster at Fox for ten years. Has been concertmaster for many composers, including Bill Conti, Georges Delerue, Charles Fox, Gerald Fried, Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, and Fred Karlin. Alan Silvestri: Composer MP: Maid in Manhattan; The Mummy Returns; What Lies Beneath; Cast Away; Stuart Little 1 and 2; What Women Want; Mouse Hunt; Forrest Gump (AN); Back to the Future I, II, and III; Father of the Bride I and II; Who Framed Roger Rabbit; Romancing the Stone; Outrageous Fortune; Clan of the Cave Bear. TV: “Starsky and Hutch” [ep]. Scott Smalley: Orchestrator

On the track

734

MP: The Insider; For Love of the Game; The Rugrats Movie; Starship Troopers; Breakdown; My Fellow Americans; The Evening Star; Tin Cup; Mission: Impossible; Operation Dumbo Drop; The Quick and the Dead; Richie Rich; Batman; Big Top Peewee; RoboCop; Conan the Barbarian. TV: Return to Lonesome Dove; “Tales from the Crypt.” Mark Snow: Composer MP: X-Files: Fight the Future; Crazy in Alabama; Disturbing Behavior. TV: “The XFiles” [thm, ep] (9 EN; thm/EN); The Day Lincoln Was Shot; The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All [ms] (EN); Something About Amelia (EN); Children of the Dust [ms] (EN); Nowhere Man (EN); An American Story (EN); “La Femme Nikita” (EN); “Smallville” [thm, ep]; “The Twilight Zone” [thm, ep]; “Millennium” [thm, ep]; “Starsky and Hutch” [thm, ep]. Curt Sobel: Music editor-composer MP: [mus ed]: i am sam (songs); Bedazzled; The Insider [spr me]; Hope Floats; Dolores Claiborne; Bound by Honor; For the Boys [spr, me]; Men Don’t Leave; Tap; Harry and the Hendersons; Young Sherlock Holmes; Risky Business; An Officer and a Gentleman. [mus ed: temp track]: End of Days; X-Men; Meet Joe Black. Clark Spangler: Sythesist One of the pioneers in studio synthesis; invited by Yamaha to help create the factory preset patches for the original DX7. Has performed and programmed music for numerous motion pictures and television projects. David Spear: Composer-orchestrator MP: Pentathlon; No Retreat, No Surrender II; Mortuary Academy; The Courage to Care; Rainbow War; Exterminator 2; Kiss Daddy Goodbye; Fear No Evil. [Orch]: Alaska; Three Amigos!; My Science Project; Ghostbusters; Heavy Metal; Airplane!; Animal House; Bloodbrothers. [Cond.]: The Great Santini; Fear No Evil; An Officer and a Gentleman. TV: Lincoln and the War Within; The Ratings Game; “Delta House”[ep]. Michael Stern: Scoring mixer/recording engineer A regular columnist for The A&R Registry and Film Music magazine, and has also been published in the Society of Lyricists and Composer’s newsletter, The Score. MP: [Scr mxr]: Festival in Cannes; The Outer Limits; [prerec]: John Q; Liar, Liar; I Know What You Did Last Summer (and mx elect scr). CD: The Stalking Moon [remix eng/mastering]; “Trumpet Evolution” (Arturo Sandoval) [Pro Tools recording engineer]; [Rec eng]: “Colors” and “Second Wind” (Herb Alpert). Oliver Stone: Director-writer MP: Comandante; Any Given Sunday; The Year of the Dragon [w]; Platoon (AA); Wall Street; Midnight Express (AA/w); Salvador (AN/w); Scarface [w]; Nixon; Natural Born Killers; Heaven & Earth; JFK; Born on the Fourth of July; The Doors. John Tempereau: Agent

The business

735

John Tempereau is one of the four partners at Soundtrack Music Associates, which has offices in Los Angeles and London. Among his clients are music supervisor John Houlihan (Austin Powers I and II, Charlies Angels I and II, and Training Day) and composers Stephen Warbeck, Cliff Martinez, Lennie Niehaus, John Murphy, and David Julyan. Michael Tronick: Music editor-film editor MP: [ed]: S.W.A.T.; The Scorpion King; American Outlaws; Remember the Titans; Blue Streak; Meet Joe Black; Under Siege 2: Dark Territory; True Romance; Scent of a Woman; Straight Talk; Days of Thunder; Midnight Run; Beverly Hills Cop II. [me]: Chorus Line; Reds; 48 Hours; Outrageous Fortune; All That Jazz; Streets of Fire; Ruthless People. Rick Vettraino: Music copyist-librarian More than thirty years with his own company. MP: Mercury Rising; Out of Africa; Rocky and Rocky II; In the Heat of the Night; The Thomas Crown Affair; Body Heat; Ghostbusters. TV: Robert Kennedy and His Times; Inside the Third Reich; “Academy Awards Show” [twice]. Dan Wallin: Recording mixer-rerecording mixer Acoustic design of Paramount Stage M; human engineering of Burbank Studios scoring stages. MP: Far from Heaven; Ali; Charlie’s Angels; The Thomas Crown Affair; Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; The Way We Were; Out of Africa; The Right Stuff; Prizzi’s Honor; Body Heat; The Fugitive; Star Trek III and IV; The Wild Bunch; Woodstock. TV: Gotti (EN). Ken Wannberg: Music editor MP: Catch Me If You Can; Minority Report; Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace; Saving Private Ryan; The Lost World: Jurassic Park; Nixon; Schindler’s List; Jurassic Park; Home Alone 2: Lost in New York [spr me]; JFK; Home Alone; Born on the Fourth of July; Return of the Jedi; The Last Waltz; Star Wars; Close Encounters of the Third Kind; A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Paul Wendkos: Director MP: The Mesphisto Waltz; Guns of the Magnificent Seven. TV: Different; A Wing and a Prayer; Crimes of Passion: Nobody Lives Forever; Bloodlines: Murder in the Family; Trial: The Price of Passion; Guilty until Proven Innocent; Good Cops, Bad Cops; Blind Faith; The Execution; The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd; “Hawaii Five-O” pilot; The Bad Seed; The Legend of Lizzie Borden; Cocaine—One Man ‘s Seduction; The Death of Richie. Michael Whalen: Composer MP: Lake Desire; Born Loser; Chasing Destiny; Mulligan; Titanic: Anatomy of a Disaster. TV: Air Force One; Inside the Space Station; Stolen from the Heart; In Search of Liberty Bell 7; Idols of the Game [ms]; Katharine Hepburn: All About Me. Patrick Williams: Composer

On the track

736

MP: The Grass Harp; All of Me; The Toy; Swing Shift; Breaking Away; Violets Are Blue; Just Between Friends. TV: We Were the Mulvaneys (EN); Blonde [ms]; The Siege at Ruby Ridge; Danielle Steel’s Jewels (Part 1) (E); Kingfish: A Story of Huey P. Long (EN); Geronimo (EN); “Lou Grant” [thm, ep] (E); “Bob Newhart Show” [thm, ep]; “Mary Tyler Moore Show” [thm, ep.]. Records: Threshold (G); Suite Memories (GN). Robert Wise: Director MP: West Side Story (2 AAs/d and p); The Sound of Music (AAs/ d and p); Star Trek— The Motion Picture; The Hindenburg; The Sand Pebbles; The Andromeda Strain; I Want to Live!; The Day the Earth Stood Still; The Haunting; Two for the Seesaw; Citizen Kane [ed]. Christopher Young: Composer MP: Runaway Jury; The Core; The Country Bears; The Shipping News; Bandits; The Glass House; Scenes of the Crime; Swordfish; Sweet November; The Gift; Wonder Boys; The Hurricane; Entrapment; Rounders; Hard Rain; Murder at 1600; Copycat; Virtuosity; Species; Jennifer Eight; The Fly II; Bat*21; A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge; Def-Con 4. TV: Norma Jean and Marilyn (EN); Last Flight Out. Hans Zimmer: Composer MP: The Last Samurai; Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron; Black Hawk Down; Riding in Cars with Boys; Pearl Harbor; Hannibal; Mission: Impossible II; Gladiator (AN, w/Lisa Gerrard); The Thin Red Line (AN); The Prince of Egypt (AN/scr); As Good As It Gets (AN); The Peacemaker (AN); The Preacher’s Wife (AN); Crimson Title; The Lion King (AA/scr); True Romance; A League of Their Own; The Power of One; Thelma & Louise; Driving Miss Daisy; Black Rain; Rain Man (AN).

THE AUTHORS Fred Karlin Fred Karlin has been scoring motion pictures and television films since Up the Down Staircase in 1967. He received an Academy Award for Best Song in 1971 (“For All We Know” with lyrics by Robb Royer and James Griffin) and an Emmy in 1974 for Best Score for the television film The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. His score for the television film Minstrel Man (with lyrics by his wife Megan Karlin) was awarded a special Image Award in 1978 by the NAACP. He has been nominated four times for an Academy Award, and twelve times for an Emmy. A representative sampling of his film music would include his scores for Westworld; Futureworld; Leadbelly; and The Sterile Cuckoo (including the music for his Grammynominated standard, “Come Saturday Morning” with lyrics by Dori Previn). He has scored a number of television miniseries including Robert Kennedy and His Times, Ike: The War Years; The Awakening Land; Dream West; and Inside the Third Reich, among many other television projects. His scores are being released by Ichiro Koji’s Reel Music Down Under record label under the series titled “The Fred Karlin Collection.”

The business

737

He plays jazz trumpet and has written jazz scores featuring his solo performances, including “Reflections,” commissioned in 1993 by the American Jazz Philharmonic, and “The Peace Seeker,” commissioned in 1998 by the Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association. Two CDs featuring his trumpet and flugelhorn were released by Varèse Sarabande in the midnineties, titled “Cool and Classic,” featuring film music themes from the sixties and seventies. From 1965 through 1968 he taught the jazz program at the Eastman School of Music Summer Arrangers Workshop. He created the ASCAP/Fred Karlin Film Scoring Workshop in 1988 and continued to instruct his workshop through 1996. He has taught film scoring and film music courses at the University of California Santa Barbara and the USC Film & Television Scoring program; his seminars and lectures include programs at the

Fred Karlin. European Film College in Denmark, the Flanders Film Festival in Belgium, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild, and the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. In 1994 Karlin produced and directed a 70-minute documentary about film composer Jerry Goldsmith called Film Music Masters: Jerry Goldsmith. His other books include Listening to Movies: The Film Lover’s Guide to Film Music (1994, Schirmer Books) and

On the track

738

Great Film Scores (2004, Routledge Publishing Co.). He graduated from Amherst College with honors in music composition, and continued his music studies privately with three masters: William Russo (jazz orchestration), coauthor Rayburn Wright (symphonic orchestration), and Tibor Serly (conducting). He served on the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1972 through 1975, and also the Board of the Composers and Lyricists Guild. He also served as a vice president of the Film Music Society for several years before moving to France for three years in 1999. He and his wife Megan now live in the Los Angeles area. Rayburn Wright Rayburn Wright created the Jazz Studies and Contemporary Media Masters Program at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester and served as director and professor of the department from 1970 until his death in 1990. He taught film scoring in a laboratory setting including synchronized recording of film and video scores, an innovation at that time. He taught arranging, orchestration, and the business of music, and was cochair of the Conducting and Ensembles Department. An active composer/arranger/conductor in New York City, he became chief arranger and codirector/conductor at Radio City Music Hall from 1952 to 1970. During this period he composed film scores for ABC/TV and was twice nominated for Emmys for his work as composer/conductor on the documentary series The Saga of Western Man. He also wrote scores for the Joffrey and Slavenska-Franklin Ballet companies. He was guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Wright produced many recordings and received a citation from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 1985 for his producer’s role in the Eastman Philharmonia recording of Copland’s Lincoln Portrait featuring William Warfield. He graduated from Eastman School in 1943 where he studied trombone with Emory Remington. Immediately after graduation he joined the U.S. Army Band as a trombonist. Upon his return to the states he toured with the Tony Pastor and Beneke/ Glenn Miller orchestras playing trombone and arranging for the bands. He received his Masters degree at Juilliard and Columbia University’s Teachers College. He studied orchestration with Bernard Rogers, Burrill Phillips, and Henry Brant, composition with Henry Brant and Otto Leuning, and conducting with Vla

The business

739

Rayburn Wright. Photo: Louis Ouzer. dimir Bakaleinakoff, Paul White, Emanuel Balaban, and Fritz Mahler. Wright is the author of Inside the Score, an analytical text on jazz arranging. In 1984 he was awarded the Eisenhart Award for Distinguished Teaching by the Eastman School of Music, and in 1986 was named New York State Professor of the Year by the National Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. His success as a teacher and mentor is demonstrated by the long list of students who have since become musicians of note in their own right.

On the track

740

This page intentionally left blank.

Appendix

741

APPENDIX A. STUDY ASSIGNMENTS CHAPTER 8. TIMINGS AND CLICKS 1. Without using the conversion table in Figure 8.5, calculate the metronomic (beats per minute) equivalent of the click tempo of 15 frames per click. Then check your answer with that table. 2. Do the same for a click tempo of (9 5/8) frames per click. Then check your answer with the table. 3. Calculate the click tempo in frames for the metronome tempos of 72 and 180. Then check the table. 4. What is the number of motion picture frames per second for 35mm, 16mm, and 8mm sound film? (They are all the same.) 5. Using Figure 8.7 as a model, express these timings in music notation: The tempo is a frame click (refer to the click tables in Appendix C) and the meter is 4/4: Hard hit “A” is at : 14.46=beat #— Hard hit “B” is at :20.29=beat #—

6. Do the same for these timings. The click is frames and the meter is 3/4: Hit “A” at :04.71=click (beat) #— Hit “B” at :23.35—click (beat) #—

7. Do the same for these timings: The tempo is a 17-frame click and the meter is 4/4: Hit “A” at :42.68=click #— Hit “B” at 1:00.45—click #—

Appendix

742

8. Do the same for these timings: Tempo= frame click. Meter=5/4: Hit “A” at :30.37=beat #— Hit “B” at 1:17.96=beat #—

9. Using the offset method discussed on pages 115–16 and illustrated in Figure 8.8, figure the offset for these hits and show the amount of the offset (the later start in the cue) and the resulting music notation. Tempo=18-frame click. Meter=4/4. Hit “A” at :15.10 Hit “B” at :23.34 Hit “C” at :33.10 Amount of offset =— New timings after subtracting offset for later start: Hit “A” at—beat #— Hit “B” at=beat #— Hit “C” at=beat #—

Appendix

743

CHAPTER 11. GENRES AND SOURCE MUSIC 1. Compose cues for selected comedy situations, horror film excerpts, Western scenes, war films, TV police stories, and action films. In each case work from a real work print of a film if available. If not, rent a video and view it with sound turned off. Invent a story line to fit the action, take timings with a stopwatch. If these materials aren’t available, invent an imaginary situation, give it timings, and write a cue to that script and those timings. Record your cues and note the reaction of yourself and others. What connotation does each cue communicate?

CHAPTER 13. USING MELODY 1. View a film or television episode and make a list of cues, characterizing each one as having predominantly melody, harmony, or rhythm as the communicative element of the music. 2. Write 6- to 12-bar melodies that communicate these emotions or connotations. Use no harmony or predominantly rhythmic elements. a. Fresh young love in a French eighteenth-century provincial setting. b. A quiet, positive young contemporary American woman who will ultimately triumph. c. A restless, dynamic, contemporary man with ill-concealed vengeance. d. The childish innocence of a mute Indonesian child at play in a dangerous place. 3. Imagine two other filmic situations and compose melodic treatments using two linear voices.

CHAPTER 14. USING HARMONY 1. Use your melody from 2a in Chapter 13 and add a harmonic accompaniment that preserves the dramatic intent of the original. 2. Reharmonize the same melody to support an increasing stress and sadness because of

Appendix

744

unresolvable conflicts between the romantic characters. 3. Support harmonically the melody you developed in 2b to preserve the stated dramatic situation. 4. Reharmonize the same melody to support a dramatic evolution in which the young woman’s ambition has changed her from a person with integrity into a person who is ruthless and cold. 5. Harmonize 2c to support a harmless comic set of actions by the character who has previously been seen as vengeful. 6. Harmonize 2d to support the stated dramatic intent. 7. Reharmonize 2d to support the child’s nightmarish dream. 8. Take one of your dramatic situations from Chapter 13, question 2 (or one of the setups of question 3) and use only harmonic nonmelodic elements in composing a musical segment. 9. Add a melodic line to fit the harmonic materials, while still supporting the dramatic situation.

CHAPTER 15. USING RHYTHM 1. View videos of several of the examples given in this chapter. What is the dramatic effectiveness of each one? What musically provides that effectiveness? 2. View a theatrical or television action film and analyze the rhythmic development. Are the rhythmic passages repetitious and hypnotic, are they changing and developmental? Is harmony a critical component? Is melody? 3. Set up an extended rhythmic passage for a threatening chase in a primitive jungle. Use no pitches or harmony, only note stems and beams, without heads, but indicate relative registers. Indicate meter, tempo, dynamics, and accents. Indicate several subclimaxes (or red herrings) and a real target climax, then one super climax. 4. Add harmonies and pitches to the above sketch.

CHAPTER 16. USING ORCHESTRATION 1. Reduce each of the full scores to condensed sketch-score and analyze the orchestrational details. 2. Set up a plan for keeping a notebook of especially effective film and concert scores, keeping notes about the communicated drama and the orchestral means of achieving those effects. Acquire copies of any of these scores that are available and continue reducing these scores to sketches. Assemble for your use a library of audio cassettes or records of the musical excerpts. 3. Attend orchestra rehearsals and concerts (with scores in hand if possible) to absorb the sounds of the instruments and different orchestrational combinations. When listening to the music, try to visualize how the score looks before studying it. Consider how you would orchestrate it to get that sound.

Appendix

745

4. Pick three of the solutions to the following questions and orchestrate them for full orchestra: Chapter 14, questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9; Chapter 14, question 4. 6. Pick four of the solutions for these questions or those of Chapter 13, questions 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d, or 3 and orchestrate them for the smallest group of instruments that can effectively project the drama (under 20 players).

CHAPTER 17. TECHNICAL AND PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 1. Set a steady tempo with a metronome or computer program (without looking at its tempo calibration) and practice taking the tempo from a stopwatch from the method on page 333 (start the watch on beat #1 and stop on beat #25 to get the click tempo in frames). Check your results directly with the metronome calibration. For the metronome equivalent, divide the click tempo into 1,440 to convert it to beats per minute and compare with the metronome’s reading. 2. To get the metronome tempo directly from the stopwatch, start counting the beats as you start the watch. Stop counting as the watch passes fifteen seconds. Subtract one from this number and multiply the remainder by four to get the MM number. Compare results from both systems. 3. View videos of any of the film examples on page 366 and study and note the interrelationship of the sound effects and the music. 4. Study other films and TV episodes, similarly noting the interrelationship of music and sound effects.

CHAPTER 18. RECORDING—THE SCORING STAGE 1. Practice conducting by setting a metronome or computer program to about MM 96 and conducting (in front of a mirror) meters of 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 7/4, 8/4, and 9/4. After conducting each meter for extended lengths, then conduct one bar of each from 2/4 to 9/4 and continue in reverse order from 9/4 to 2/4. The 5/4 pattern should be practiced as both 2+3 and 3+2; the 6/4 as both 2+2+2 and 3+3; the 7/4 as 4+3 and 3+4; the 8/4 as 2+2+2+2 and the 9/4 as both 3+3+3 and 2+2+2+3. On subsequent practice sessions try faster and slower metronome tempos. (See the “Bibliography” for texts on conducting.) 2. Attend as many scoring sessions or recording sessions as possible. Observe the mixing boards, control room equipment, and the roles of the mixer and other people in the control booth. Note the way the conductor works with the musicians and engineer. Take every chance to record any music, paying attention to the results obtained with specific setups. 3. In recording a cue with many hits, all are hitting correctly but one. The tempo is a frame click and the meter is 3/4. It is not clear where the mistake is, but one hit

Appendix

746

seems to be hitting :00.33 early. How many beats should it be moved? Should it be moved earlier or later? 4. After recording the first take of a cue with the orchestra in which you know you have stayed with the click, you are told that one of the three dead hits is incorrect while the other two are exactly on. The tempo is a frame click, the meter is 4/4. Dead hits are at: :06.49

Hit # I

:15.23

Hit # II

:24.26

Hit # III

Your musical solution has placed the hits here:

Your music editor tells you that there was a clerical error on Hit # II. It should have been at : 14.23 rather than : 15.23. To what beat do you tell the orchestra to move the accent? 5. The tempo of a cue seems uncomfortably hurried at the indicated tempo of the frame click and the only solution seems to be to slow it down to a frame click. There are no internal hits but the final “accent off’ must hit within a quarter second of 1:04.67. How many beats will you have to cut from the cue to make the timing of the final accent off work out at the slower tempo?

CHAPTER 20. USING ELECTRONIC MUSIC 1. Pick two dramatic situations from the following list (or similar) and compose and record 1 1/2-minute cues for them: a. Rising tension as police stalk a dangerous suspect. b. Emerging feelings of young love. c. Comic, blundering big-game hunters on a safari. d. Ritual dance of witchcraft. e. Child lost in scary woods. f. Supernatural visions. g. Sci-fi space exploration, at first adventuresome fun, which turns threatening.

Appendix

747

CHAPTER 21. USING CONTEMPORARY MUSIC 1. View the films listed at the end of the chapter and other films and television episodes that use electronic music. Make notes about the dramatic function of their songs. Does the music play through the scene or underscore the drama? Is the music all produced electronically or are there live elements? If the latter, what instruments and what do they add to the effectiveness of the score? Are there repeated rhythmic patterns that suggest that it was sequenced by cloning bar sequences? Is it “clickless” in feel? Is it effective? If you don’t like it, what about it would you avoid in such a cue? 2. Compose and record a one-minute theme for a contemporary TV series about innercity teenagers. Use available resources, with live rhythm section if possible, or all electronic if not. 3. Compose and record a one-minute theme for a TV hospital show whose light and caring moments should be reflected in the theme, rather than the dramatic moments that occur in the story lines. 4. Invent a hypothetical TV story line for a kind of contemporary theme you would like to write. Compose and record it.

CHAPTER 24. SONGS 1. Write several songs using different approaches: a. Write a song based on a role model of a specific song sung by a specific artist. b. Write lyrics for the above song and give it a title. c. Take existing lyrics and write a different type song to them.

SELECTED SOLUTIONS Answers involving computations are given here. Chapter 8. Timings and Clicks 4. 24 frames per second. 5. Hit “A” comes on beat # 21, Hit “B” falls on beat #29. In music notation:

Appendix

748

CHAPTER 18. RECORDING 3. The hit should be moved one eighth note later. 4. Hit #II should be moved 2/3 of a beat earlier to the second eighth-note triplet of beat one of the same bar. 5. 3 beats. The accent-off at 1:04.67 falls on beat #91 at the indicated click of while the same timing falls on beat #88 at the slower click of .

Appendix

749

APPENDIX B. FOOTAGE/TIMING CONVERSIONS IN DEALING WITH FILMS (as differentiated from videotape), when timings are first expressed as feet and frames, it is necessary to convert these footages to minutes and seconds. Even on Moviolas or flatbed editors that have extra counters calibrated in seconds, music editors often prefer to first take their counts in feet and frames (as this may be the more accurate measurement) before converting them to minutes and seconds. The conversion methods have not been included in the body of the text because the composer is rarely required to convert footages to timings. But there are occasions in smaller productions (including some high-quality art films and experimental projects of the kind beginning composers are likely to encounter) where you may need to be able to do such conversions. Having this ability has other advantages: you are then able to see and correct numerical mistakes by others that could give you false timings and cause costly mistakes at recording sessions. First of all, here are the relevant mathematical relationships: Film Format

Projection Speed

Frames Per Foot

Time Duration per Foot

Frames Per Second

35 mm

90 ft/min

16

2/3 second

24

16 mm

36 ft/min

40

1 2/3 seconds

24

Super 8 mm

20/ft/min

72

3 seconds

24

8 mm

18/ft/min

80

3 1/3 seconds

24

In this array of numbers one important fact is apparent: EACH FILM FORMAT SHOWS THE SAME 24 FRAMES PER SECOND OF PROJECTION SPEED. Stated another way, it shows that each frame in every film format has a time value of 1/24 second. Thus in any film format if we convert all footages to frames and divided by the universal 24 frames per second we will have converted to seconds. With the help of an ordinary pocket calculator with the simplest four mathematical functions and movable decimal point, we can do this very easily. The crucial numbers in each film format then are those that tell you the number of frames per foot. A 35mm Example Convert a 35mm footage of 9 feet, 12 frames into timings. From the above table, we use 16 frames per foot as the multiplier. 16 × 9=144 frames. Adding the extra 12 frames gives 156 frames total. Dividing by 24 gives :06.5 seconds. A 16mm Example

Appendix

750

Convert a 16mm footage of 28 ft. 22 fr. into timings. The table shows there to be 40 fr. per foot in 16mm format. Hence:

STUDY ASSIGNMENTS IN FOOTAGE CONVERSIONS IT IS OBVIOUSLY IMPORTANT ALWAYS TO KNOW WHAT UNITS YOU ARE HANDLING. Film editors have traditionally made these conversions by using the ratio of 3:2 for 35mm feet-to-seconds and the ratio of 3:5 for 16mm feet-to-seconds. The above method is simpler (given a pocket calculator) and still accurate. 1. How many frames per foot in 35mm format? 2. How many frames per foot in 16mm film format? 3. In 35mm format, convert 15 ft. 11 fr. into seconds. 4. In 35mm format, convert 27 ft. 15 fr. into seconds. 5. In 16mm format, convert 21 ft. 28 ft into seconds. 6. In 16mm format, convert 79 ft. 38 fr. into minutes and seconds. 7. Add these 35mm footages: 8. Add these 16mm footages:

9. Add as 35mm footages: 10. Convert your answer from question 9 to minutes and seconds.

11. Add as 16mm footages: 12. Convert your answer from question 11 to minutes and seconds.

ANSWERS

3. :10.46.

Appendix

4. :18.63. 5. :36.17. 6. 2:13.25. 7. 20 ft 5 fr. 8. 19 ft 21 fr. 9. 25 ft 1 fr. 10. :16.71 (sec) 11. 23 ft 33 fr. 12. :39.71 (sec).

751

Appendix

752

APPENDIX C CALCULATOR METHOD FOR TIMINGS A click book is a very convenient tabular listing of timings, but all timings can be computed without one if you have a pocket calculator. This frees you from the dependency of having a click book or computer with you. The procedure for converting timings into music notation with only a calculator is as follows: 1. Choose your tempo and express it in click-track calibration (that is, frames per click). If it is calibrated in metronome beats per minute, convert it to click-track frames by dividing it into 1,440, and round the answer to the decimal equivalent of the nearest eighth of a frame. For example, a film has two hits: :08.00

Stella turns to John

:21.79

Door slams violently

You have chosen a tempo of 116 beats per minute.

Rounding to the nearest decimal equivalent of eighths of frames we get 12.375 (decimal equivalent of 12 3/8 fr. click). 2. Convert the timing of the hits from seconds to total frames. This keeps the timings and the click intervals in the same frame units. In this case the first hit is at :08.00 secs:

3. Divide the timing (in frames) by the click (in frames):

Round this off to 15.5 beat-units. This is a soft hit, and rounding off to the nearest tenth will provide a sufficient degree of precision. 4. To get the total number of beats, add one to the number of beat-units to account for

Appendix

753

the first click that occurs while the clock is at zero. This is sometimes a confusing step, which often causes mistakes, yet it is analogous to similar situations in everyday life. For example, if we measure with a ruler we can see that the first mark has no number. If we were to number the left end of the ruler as mark # 1 we can see that the mark numbers are always one greater than the number of units (inches):

Note that the click book has already taken into account that extra beat number. On every page for every tempo the timing for beat #1 is always :00.00 seconds. And the timing at beat. #2 is always the length of one beat-unit. Continuing with our example: Add 1 to 15.5 beat-units to make 16.5. 16 1/2 is the beat number (or click number) of the hit. Our second hit must be dead on to match an instantaneous impact in the picture. Following the above procedure of converting timing to total frames and dividing by the click tempo:

Round to the nearest frame (523 fr.), since anything smaller

than a frame is too small to be observed, and divide by the click tempo:

Round to 42.25 beat-units and add 1 to make 43.25, the click number where the hit will occur in the music. In music notation, the two hits now show as:

Appendix

754

Note: To convert timings to total frames in cases where the timings are expressed as minutes, seconds, and frames, you must remember to add the extra frames after the minutes and seconds are converted to frames. For example: a timing of 1:23 and 9 fr.: 1:23 is first expressed as seconds: 83 sec. 83×24=1,992 frs. 1992 + the extra 9 frs=2,001 total frames. From there on the process is identical to the above.

STUDY ASSIGNMENT IN CALCULATOR-DERIVED TIMINGS Show these hard hits in music notation. Do not use the click book. The click tempo is 13 fr. click. The meter is 4/4. Hit A at : 10.83 sec is click #— Hit B at : 18.69 sec is click #— In music notation:

ANSWER Hit A is beat 21, the first beat of bar 6. Hit B is beat 35 1/2, after an eighth rest on the third beat of bar 9. For further practice, solve problems 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 on pages 485–86 without using the click book.

Appendix

755

APPENDIX D DROP FRAME To understand drop-frame, it is necessary to understand something about the way television signals are controlled and synchronized so that all VCRs are using the same electronic language. Without such agreement, the pictures would be scrambled and unintelligible. As discussed in Chapter 10, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) coordinates these standards. The standardization of the SMPTE time code (in 1969) produced a workable system for videotape editing and produced a way to reliably time videotape to the individual frame, as motion-picture film can be timed to the frame. In this system, each individual video frame is encoded with a number representing its hour, minute, second, and frame. In the American NTSC protocol, the time code is normally produced by a generator that counts at 30 frames per second (or in the European PAL/ SECAM protocol, at 25 frames per second). This works for black-and-white television. However, for color television the number of frames per second is actually close to 29.97, an unlikely number that results from other technical requirements. Because of this, a SMPTE time-code generator that counts video frames at 30 frames per second, when used in color television, produces an error of 3.6 seconds every hour (or 18 frames per ten minutes, almost 2 frames per minute). To compensate for this error buildup, a drop-frame mode has been developed in which 2 frames are dropped each minute, except for every 10th minute (a correction needed, like leap year’s February 29, to correct for the fact that the error is slightly less than 2 frames per minute.) Each time a new minute number appears, the frame count goes directly from 29 frames to 2 frames of the new minute. Conventional wisdom says that if you always use SMPTE drop-frame, you will never be more than 2 frames (actually 1.8 frames) off, that being the maximum error. (This is .06 second.) The timing errors that result from using non-drop-frame do not become troublesome until music cues are longer than 3 or 4 minutes, and then only when the hits are sharp and obvious. A complicating situation exists because the SMPTE time code has turned out to be very useful for purposes other than videotape syncing. It is used extensively as a locating device for multitrack recording and for slaving several tape recorders to a master recorder. Digital audiotape editing uses it extensively. It is also being used to drive (timelock) electronic sequencers. Under these circumstances (that is, when video is not involved) dropframe is not needed and rarely used (and its maximum recurring error of 2 frames would be intolerable in digital audio editing). Some SMPTE time-code generators offer the option of producing either drop-frame or non-drop-frame calibration, but many do not offer drop-frame. This is of no consequence

Appendix

756

in applications other than syncing to videotape, because in either mode the generator is keeping accurate time and will give accurate results if the code-reading device matches the codegenerating device. This is a point that remains confusing. In either mode the seconds generated are true seconds and the inaccuracies cited above only occur when a non-drop-frame reader or generator is synced to a VCR or to a drop-frame generator or other device following the drop-frame protocol.

Appendix

757

This page intentionally left blank.

Glossary

758

GLOSSARY A & R [Artists & Repertoire] person. Someone who works with record label artists and sometimes advises them with regard to the material they record. Academy filter. An audio equalization curve, standardized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which in the past limited both high and low frequency content to prevent distortion resulting from oversaturation of the optical soundtracks used in film release prints. academy leader. The standardized head leader of a film reel, in which numbers from 10 to 2 appear every foot in descending order. accent off. An accented cut-off to end a music cue. act in. A brief music lead-in to a new scene after a television commercial break. act out. The cue in a television episode or movie made for television that leads to a commercial break. Usually builds to a climax, but not necessarily. ADR looping. Automatic dialogue replacement. Recording a new performance of dialogue to replace the original produc-tion dialogue track. A.F. of M. The American Federation of Musicians; the professional musicians union. AFTRA. The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. aleatoric music. Music that contains chance performance elements, usually with the pitch and timing of notes to be decided by the performers. answer print. A final version of the film with all sound and visual effects combined on one film base. The answer print is screened for approval and flaws are noted for correction on subsequent answer prints until approved for production of release prints. ASCAP. The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. A performing rights society that licenses small rights for performance. assembly. First version of the film, in which the scenes are assembled in sequence. Auricle. A sophisticated software/hardware package designed to assist with the synchronization of music with film. Used throughout the film music community. baffle. To isolate instruments in a recording session with sound barriers (called screens, baffles, flats, or gobos); an object that physically isolates instruments. basso continuo. A repeated bass figure above which the music develops. Betamax. The original 1/2-inch videocassette format produced by the Sony Corporation. billboard. A short display announcement of one of a TV show’s advertisers, or of the title of the sports event being televised on a sports show. BMI. Broadcast Music Incorporated. A performance rights society that licenses small rights for performance. board. Mixing board or console. booth. Recording booth where the recording engineer works at a mixing console. booth person (or representative). The person in the recording booth who monitors the sound, balance, and other matters of performance and recording quality.

Glossary

759

bridge. A short cue that connects two scenes or sections of a film sequence. building a click track. Creating a click track (sometimes variable), to establish a tempo and follow changing music meters or changing tempos. building music units. A term used prior to digital editing to describe the process of assembling music units (35mm reels of music recorded on magnetic film) into synced sequences in which the music cues alternate in placement from one reel to the other for ultimately continuous playback in alternating fashion. bumper. A short (:05–:07 sec) music cue accompanying a program logo, which is inserted after commercials or station breaks to identify the program. burned in. A time code recorded permanently on the picture of a videocassette. button. An ending music accent. cans. Headphones. catching the action. Synonomous with hitting the action; providing a musical accent for a specific moment in the drama. cell. A short melodic theme. See also motif. chorus. An electronically created unison or doubling effect. click. A tempo calibrated in the number of frames and eighths of frames between beats (or beats per minute). Also the sound of an individual beat of a click track. click book. A collection of tables of timings with one page allotted to each 1/8 of a frame (as, for example, 10 1/8, or 10click). click track. Any sequence of metronomic clicks for use in synchronizing music to film. col. (coal) Italian for “with”—used as an orchestrational shortcut to tell the orchestrator or copyist to copy a line from another instrument’s score line. come sopra. (coam-ay soap-rah). Italian for “like above”—a term used to describe instructions to copyist or orchestrator written in the score or sketch to copy specific bar numbers. concertmaster. The musician who is the “first chair” violinist, responsible for assisting the conductor with bowings, phrasings, and other similar matters. contractor. The person who engages the musicians or singers for recording sessions, coordinates many of the details (such as instrument rentals), functions as orchestra manager during the sessions, and files the contracts with the applicable union. In England, known as the fixer. cue. Each individual piece of film music (e.g., Cue 2M1). The term is also used in film scoring to mean an event within a film (i.e., hitting the cue precisely). cue click. A specific series of clicks built to facilitate playback film shooting. These clicks are played back with the prerecorded music and include warning clicks to assist the miming musicians to re-enter properly after a fermata or ritard. cue sheet(s). Licensing information prepared by the music editor at the conclusion of dubbing, listing each individual cue, the composer, lyricist (if any), and all publishing information. These cue sheets (sometimes many pages in length) are sent to the appropriate performing rights society (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC) so that the performance of the music can be accurately surveyed. dead hit. A precisely synced music accent. See also hard hit. desk. Mixing console (or board.) Chiefly British.

Glossary

760

digital metronome. A click-generating device used extensively on scoring stages and by composers prior to the general use of Auricle. director. In addition to dramatic and camera directions, the person responsible for making (or approving) all creative decisions and overseeing all creative activities associated with a film project. While shooting the film each day, all personnel are under his direction. double session. An A.F. of M.—stipulated grouping of two three-hour sessions within an eight-hour time period, which allows flexibility in the division of time between the two periods. double system projection. Film projection on separate but interlocked projectors and playback dummies when picture and sound are still on separate reels. doubling. The practice of one musician playing more than one instrument within an engagement. Such a musician is called a doubler. drop-frame. SMPTE time code with 2 frames dropped each minute. See also Appendix D. dub. A duplicate copy of an audio recording. To dub is to record in duplicate. See also dubbing. dub down. To mix-down from a multitrack audio recording to a smaller number of tracks, such as a two-track or threetrack stereo version. dubbing. (1) In film, the rerecording of all sound elements into one composite version. This is the version that is transferred to the final soundtrack of the release print. (2) In audio recording, any copying of sound from one source to another—tape to tape, film to tape, disk to tape, and so on. dubbing logs. Charts prepared by the music editor for the music rerecording mixer that include information about the number and nature of tracks, when they enter and exit, and so on. dubbing stage. The rerecording theater where, as the film is projected, the music, dialogue, and sound-effects tracks are mixed down to final composite audio tracks. dupe. A copy of film or audio tape. editor. Film editor; cuts the picture and dialogue into a homogenous whole. effects. Sound effects. (Used to denote special effects in another context.) effects editor. Sound effects editor, who creates and/or assembles the sound effects and cuts them into the film in sync with the picture. EWI. A MIDI wind controller called the Electronic Wind Instrument. fader. A volume control, usually seen as a slider on mixing boards. film noir. A genre of dark mystery films. fine cut. Final edited version of the film. first cut. Rough cut edited version of the film. fixer. British term for orchestra contractor. flats. Theatrical term for vertical stage panels, used in this connection as sound barriers or screens on the scoring stage. Fletcher-Munson curve. The audio frequency curve developed by Fletcher and Munson that shows how much greater intensity of sound is required on low frequency and high frequency pitches when the overall intensity level is low, in order for the average listener to perceive the various frequencies as being of equal volume. This is an

Glossary

761

important principal to apply in dubbing to prevent music from sounding “thin” when heard at low volume levels, as background music in a film often sounds under dialogue. free timing. Composing and/or conducting without the tempo guide provided by a click. FTP. File Transfer Protocol allows a person to transfer files between two computers, generally connected via the Internet. full coat. Synonymous with 3-stripe mag, because it was fully coated 35mm mag film that was used to record 3-tracks of sound prior to the virtual extinction of mag. ghost writing (or ghosting). Writing without getting credit (and/or royalties). GigaStudio. A software package (requiring accompanying hardware “for complete functionality”) that includes the potential for storage and manipulation of very large samples and sample libraries, using a PC hard drive. Called “The Ultimate Sampling Workstation” by its manufacturer, Tascam. gobo. A movable sound barrier used in recording studios. grand rights. The right to license or use music in a live theatrical production. guide tracks. Music tracks recorded prior to shooting or prerecorded during rehearsal or camera shoots, to serve as a playback guide for singers, musicians or dancers. After filming, conductor and musicians postrecord the final version in sync with the people on screen. See also scratch tracks. hard hit. A precisely synced music accent. See also dead hit. hard out. A sharp or accented cutoff of a music cue. headset. Earphones, headphones, phones. hertz. Audio cycles per second. highlighting. Emphasizing a specific moment in the film by building to a musical climax and then stopping the music just prior to that moment. hit. To sync the music to a specific moment in the film. hitting cues. Syncing specific moments in the music with specific events in the film. hitting the action. Providing a musical accent for a specific moment in the drama. KEM. A brand name of a flatbed film-editing machine. Used in the eighties and nineties prior to the general use of digital editing. layer. In recording, to overdub or track (layer by layer). See also overdub; stacking. leader. Blank film base used to fill in the silent time between audio segments recorded on mag film during the days when the music editor built music units of mag. license music. To make an agreement to pay a certain amount of money for the right to include a pre-existing song or other piece of music on a motion picture or television soundtrack. For any audiovisual material, a sync license. lock the film. To stop making changes in the fine cut. log. (1) To list the on-air usage of a music segment. (2) Chart prepared by the various editors for use by the rerecording mixers as a guide to the footage location of the individual sound elements while dubbing. looping. See ADR looping. mag. Film coated with magnetic tape for audio recording. mag stripe. Film coated with a single stripe of magnetic tape for single-track audio recording (no longer used). Sometimes this term was used as a generic designation of any film coated with magnetic tape, including 3-stripe (full coat).

Glossary

762

Main Title. The music written for the main titles of the picture. mechanical royalties. Royalties paid by the record manufacturer to the copyright holder (to be shared with the composers and lyricists) for each song or track on a sound recording. MIDI. Musical Instrument Digital Interface; a standard interface adapted by all music manufacturers in 1983 allowing electronic instruments and devices to send controlling messages to each other. mixer. The mixing engineer in a recording session. Also the electronic mixing board. mixing console. Mixing board. (Called a desk in England.) mixing engineer. The engineer who mixes the various musical sounds into the composite recorded version. MM. Maelzel’s Metronome; used to designate the number of beats per minutes (for instance, MM=120). mockups. Electronic or acoustic audio replications of the music (sometimes a blend of both) varying in quality from rough demos to finely polished performances. MOS. Filmed without sound. motif. A short melodic theme. See also cell. Moviola. The trade name for the standard vertical movieediting machine used from the thirties until flatbed editing machines such as the KEM developed in the eighties, followed by digital technology. music editor. Person responsible for all physical details regarding the synchronization of the score with the picture. music supervisor. Representative of the studio or production company, who is responsible for overseeing the business and practical details of the scoring of a film, and most especially the selection and inclusion of songs on the soundtrack. music units. Used prior to the general use of digital technology to refer to the assembled film reels containing the sequenced and synchronized music cues. Newman system. An extended system of film punches devised by composer/conductor Alfred Newman to aid the conductor. non-drop-frame. SMPTE time code calibrated at 30 frames per second. See dropframe. opticals/optical effects. Special visual effects prepared separately and cut into the film during postproduction, including dissolves, fade-ins, fade-outs, supers. ostinato. Repeated musical figure. overdub. To record additional musical elements on multitrack tape recorders or hard disk. See also stack; layer. overview. The overall idea or dramatic tone of the sequence or of the entire film. package deal. A contract to deliver a master tape of a score for a fixed price that includes all expenses except specified exclusions. pad. An accompaniment of sustained harmony or ambient sound. May be acoustic, electronic, or a blend of both. patch. A specific synth sound; so called because the original timbres were obtained by running patch cords between different modular synthesizer elements. pedal point. A repetition or sustaining of a single pitch, often while the chords change around it.

Glossary

763

phones. Headphones, earphones, headsets, “cans.” phrasing the drama. Responding in the music to the sections in the drama that represent shifts in emotion or action. pilot. A single television episode, produced for possible production as an ongoing series. pitch shifting. Adjusting the pitch of a music track. playback recording. Music prerecordings prepared to play back on the set for the actors to mime to during camera shooting. playing through the drama. Providing a consistent mood for a scene or sequence, regardless of shifts in the emotion or action; playing through. postmix. To mix-down the music from the multitrack recording after the live recording session. postproduction. All audio processing and manipulation done after the recording sessions. Also, all work on the film done after the conclusion of shooting. postrecording. See postscoring. postscoring. To score music to a picture after the film is shot and edited. predub. Premix music, sound effects, or dialogue. prerecord. (1) To record music before the film sequence is shot; to prescore. (2) To record some music elements in advance of the orchestral recording session. prerecorded tracks. Musical elements recorded prior to scoring with live musicians; these are tracks that have been recorded to be used in the final score, sometimes playing alone and sometimes in combination with other recorded music. pre-spot. To determine, prior to discussions and meetings with the filmmakers, where music will be used in a film. print takes. Master takes from recording sessions or shooting. producer. Person responsible for developing and obtaining financing for a project, and selecting and overseeing the various people necessary to make the film (often in collaboration with the director). production dialogue. The dialogue recorded during shooting. production track. Set recording. Pro Tools. A software/hardware product (Pro Tools/HD) that integrates recording, editing, mixing, and mastering. punches. Conducting aids produced by a computer program such as the Auricle or Streamline, resulting in short sequences of fluttering light pulses to cue the conductor. quantize. Adjust sequenced music rhythmically, using a sequencer. Used frequently to correct rhythmic inaccuracies. red herring. A false sense of urgency or terror. (Music can create a red herring by deliberately building to an accent at a specific moment.) A form of musical highlighting. release print. The film version that is distributed for public viewing. role model. A specific piece (or style) of music used to exemplify a musical style and/or approach. rough cut. A roughly edited version of the film, sometimes considerably longer than the fine cut will be. Also called the first cut. SAG. Screen Actors Guild (union). samples. Sounds recorded digitally, which can then be processed and played back with

Glossary

764

the use of a keyboard or other MIDI controlling device. scale. The minimum fees to be paid union members, according to agreements negotiated between business representatives of each field of endeavor (records, films, and so on) and the union. score. (1) The music for a film is a score. (2) To write the music for a film. (3) To record the music for a film (for instance, “Today I am scoring a television episode from 9 A.M. to 12 noon”). scoring stage. The sound stage or recording studio where music is recorded for films. Usually has video projection or monitoring facilities for recording to picture. scratch tracks. See guide tracks. screens. Sound barriers. See also baffles, flats, or gobos. segue. Music term meaning to continue directly without pause. sequencer. Computer programs or computer-based machines capable of digitally “recording” all the basic musical commands (but not the music, as a tape recorder does), fed them by a synthesizer keyboard or other MIDI’d electronic device. SESAC. A European-based performing rights society. set recording. (1) Recording sound on the shooting set. (2) Sound recorded on the shooting set. shooting to playback. Filming a sequence containing music, syncing to a music track. signal processor. Any piece of equipment specifically designed to manipulate sound (a signal) electronically. small performance royalties. Royalties collected and distributed to writers and publishers by licensing organizations (ASCAP, BMI in the United States) for all performances of works in all media except staged versions and versions synced to film and video (also called petit rights). SMPTE. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers—a standards-setting trade association. SMPTE time code. A standard time code used to sync film (or video) and music elements. sound loop. The 29-frame release print offset of the sound from the picture. source music. Music from a seen or unseen source in the picture (such as a marching band or juke box); music that the people on the screen can hear. split publishing. Publishing rights and/or income shared between two or more parties according to a negotiated formula. spotting. Determining where music will be used in a film. spotting notes. Notes prepared by the music editor listing in sequence the beginning and ending points of each music cue in the film, total length of each cue, and possibly other information about the scene. stacking. In recording, to overdub or track (layer by layer). See also layer; overdub. standard recording. Set recording—recording as the picture is shot. stems. Recorded (usually mixed) stereo tracks. Typically specific instruments or instrumental combinations such as bass, percussion, violins, and so on. sting. (1) To musically accent or emphasize. (2) A musical accent. stinger. A musical accent on a specific moment in the drama, either isolated or integrated into the flow of the score.

Glossary

765

streamer. A vertical line moving across the film frame used as a synchronizing guide for the conductor. Superimposed on the video image by the music editor with the use of the Auricle, Streamline, or other computer system. Streamline Music Scoring System. A computer system alternate to the Auricle, designed to assist with the synchronization of music with film. sweeteners. Added overlays of recorded sound (music usually, but could be sound effects). synchronization license. Formal permission (in the form of a contract or license granted by the copyright owners of a musical work) to use a musical composition on the soundtrack of a film (to be presented to the public in any audiovisual medium). Frequently referred to as a sync license. syncing. Synchronizing. sync rights. The rights to license or use music in a film or other visual or audio soundtrack. See also Synchronization license. Synclavier. An early hard disc based synthesizer/sampler. tailing out. Fading out the music gradually on a sustained note or chord. This effect is assisted by the mixer in dubbing. temp tracks. Music tracks temporarily cut into the film’s soundtrack prior to the final mix. time stretching. Changing the duration without changing the pitch. Umatic. 3/4-inch videotape cassette format created by Sony. Used by some composers to play and integrate video copies of a film into their studio systems while they compose and record. underscore. To add music to a film. underscoring. The score for a film. wild. Music (or dialogue) that is recorded without viewing the film in sync with the music.

Glossary

766

This page intentionally left blank.

Glossary

767

END NOTES Other than the exceptions listed below, all quotes included in On the Track have been excerpted from interviews taken by Fred Karlin in 1986 (for the first edition) and 2002 (for the second edition). Rayburn Wright interviewed John Corigliano, Alexander Courage, and Jerry Goldsmith (all 1986).

CHAPTER 1 5 “If they want to get… my best work.”: Rudy Koppl/interview by Chris Cutter, “Spider-Man and Men in Black II,” Soundtrack Vol 21/No.82, Summer 2002, p. 19. 5 “The new director…I replied, ‘is Wozzeck’.”: Film Music Notebook Volume I, Fall, 1974, p. 22. 7 “I view Jerry Goldsmith…communication is essential.”: Rudy Koppl, “Through the Viewfinder: Rod Lurie’s The Last Castle” Music from the Movies Issue 34, July/August 2002, p. 48.

CHAPTER 2 15 “I don’t want to know…your final cut.”: Paul Seydor, Film Music Notebook, Volume III, Number 3, 1977, p. 46. 17 “When I was working…a good thing.”: Randall D. Larson, “The Music of Bagger Vance: Rachel Portman and the Essence of Emotion,” Soundtrack Vol. 19/No. 76, Winter, 2000, p. 61. 17 “When they shot…writing the score.”: Rudy Koppl, “Tan Dun: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” Music from the Movies Issue 31/32, Winter, 2001, p. 49. 18– “Some composers like to be…the director by this 19 “time.”: Paul Seydor, p. 46.

CHAPTER 3 22 “If Enter the Dragon…the new millennium.”: Rush Hour DVD composer commentary, New Line Studios, 2001. 26 “A temp score is…weapon of mass destruction.”: Rudy Koppl, “What Lies Beneath: The Supernatural Thrills of Alan Silvestri,” Soundtrack Vol. 19/No. 75, Fall, 2000, p. 38. 27 “I quite appreciate them…with the temp score.”: Jeff Bond, “The Fruit for Their

Glossary

768

Labor: Jerry Goldsmith and Phil Alden Robinson Discuss The Sum of All Fears,” Film Score Monthly July, 2002, Volume 7, Number 5, p. 21. 28 “You’ve got to approach it…that’s my feeling.”: Rudy Koppl, “Christopher Young’s Second Sight: Scoring The Gift with Director Sam Raimi,” Music from the Movies Issue 30, Feb/March, 2001, p. 39. 28 “I don’t know…destructive to the process.”: Rudy Koppl, “Christopher Young’s Second Sight: Scoring The Gift with Director Sam Raimi,” Music from the Movies Issue 30, Feb/ March, 2001, p. 39. 29 “Basically the moment…derivative of each other.”: Rudy Koppl, “James Newton Howard Scoring the Impossible: Unbreakable,” Music from the Movies Issue 30, Feb/March 2001, p. 23. 30 “I actually prefer…from that!”: Randall Larson, “Mark Isham’s October Sky,” Soundtrack Vol. 18/No. 71, Fall, 1999, p. 22. 30 “Working with temp track…the director is all about.”: Karlin, Jerry Goldsmith: Film Music Masters (1995), Karlin/ Tilford Productions, September, 1994. 31 “I want to help the director…then it’s a detriment.”: Rudy Koppl, “What Lies Beneath: The Supernatural Thrills of Alan Silvestri,” Soundtrack Vol 19/No. 75, Fall, 2000, p. 38. 31 “If it’s working…as I felt it could be.” Randall Larson, p. 22.

CHAPTER 4 33 “Spotting in the old days…the ones I’m doing.”: Karlin, Jerry Goldsmith: Film Music Masters Karlin/Tilford Productions, September, (1995), September, 1994. 24 “I would sit with Chris…about the picture and the moment.”: “Christopher Young’s Second Sight: Scoring The Gift with Director Sam Raimi.”: Rudy Koppl, Music from the Movies Issue 30, Feb/March, 2001, p. 39. 34 “Very often the biggest disagreement…music as they want.”: Chris Cutter/written and transcribed by Rudy Koppl, “Spider-Man and Men in Black II,” Soundtrack Vol. 21/No.82, Summer, 2002, p. 16.

CHAPTER 5 59 “I think the biggest challenge…aspect of creativity.”: Rudy Koppl, “George Clinton and the Austin Powers Phenomenon,” Soundtrack Vol. 18/No. 70, Summer, 1999, p. 28.

CHAPTER 6 95 “I wanted it to be…The Master Musicians of Jajouka.”: Rudy Koppl, “Inside The Cell with Composer Howard Shore and Director Tarsem Dhandwar,” Soundtrack

Glossary

769

Vol. 19/No. 75, Fall, 2000, p. 24.

CHAPTER 7 101 “You know a cue…or it’s not,”: Rudy Koppl, “Through the Viewfinder: Rod Lurie’s The Last Castle,” Music from the Movies Issue 34, July/August, 2002, p. 48. 101– “My mock up for Vertical Limit…but I try to 102 avoid it.”: Rudy Koppl, “Going to the Vertical Limit with Composer James Newton Howard,” Soundtrack Vol. 19/No. 76, Winter, 2000, p. 24. 103 “To me what gives away…the secret to making mockups sound real.”: John Krogh, “James Newton Howard: Master of MIDI Orchestration,” Keyboard Magazine, December 2000. 104 “He would say…We communicated well together.”: Rudy Koppl, “Going to the Vertical Limit with Composer James Newton Howard,” Soundtrack Vol. 19/No. 76, Winter, 2000, p. 25. 104 “His mockup was so good…have to score it.”: Rudy Koppl, “James Newton Howard Scoring the Impossible: Unbreakable, with Director M. Night Shyamalan,” Music from the Movies Issue 30, Feb/March, 2001, p. 23. 104 “I made sure that every tape we sent…it really made a difference.”: Christopher Holder, “Recording The Insider” Australian Audio Technology Magazine, from Bourke’s Web site Pieter Bourke.com. 104 “I kept it really basic…fully orchestral mockups.”: Rudy Koppl, “On the Edge of Madness: Marco Beltrami Scores the Sci-Fi Cinematic Blood Fest Blade II,” Soundtrack Vol. 21/No. 18, Spring, 2002, p. 6.

CHAPTER 10 137 “What I try to do…so important.”: Michael Moricz, The Audio Works Studio WDUQ radio interview, 1988, from Karlin, Film Music Masters: Jerry Goldsmith Karlin/ Tilford Productions, (1995), September, 1994. 152 “Most of us are aware…if they’ll let him.”: Paul Seydor, Film Music Notebook 1977, Volume III, Number 3, pp. 45–46. 165 “Ang Lee’s martial arts…I was immediately inspired.”: Rudy Koppl, “Tan Dun: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Music from the Movies Issue 31/32, Winter, 2001, p. 48. 165– “The choral piece…super-real, or unreal even.”: 166 “Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace,” Soundtrack Vol 18/No. 70, Summer, 1999, p. 12.

CHAPTER 11

Glossary

770

179 “Just because…right off the beginning.”: Hollow Man DVD composer commentary, Columbia Tri-Star, 2002. 179 “The process is…soft and poetic.”: Rudy Koppl, “Going to the ‘Vertical Limit’ with Composer James Newton Howard,” Soundtrack Vol. 19/No. 76, Winter, 2000, p. 24. 179 “I started by talking about…in so many action films.”: Jeff Bond, “The Fruit for Their Labor: Jerry Goldsmith and Phil Alden Robinson Discuss The Sum of All Fears” Film Score Monthly July, 2002, Volume 7, Number 5, p. 20. 179 “You have to know…seemed to work very well.”: Rudy Koppl, “Going to the Vertical Limit with Composer James Newton Howard,” Soundtrack Vol. 19/No. 76, Winter, 2000, p. 26. 180 “Comedy needs a little bit…and more human.”: Randall D. Larson, “Scoring Comedy with Craig Safan,” Soundtrack Vol 17/No.67, September, 1998, p. 22. 181 “I realized with this film…not emotion.”: Chuck Crisafulli, “Soundtrack of Life,” Hollywood Reporter, November 12–18, 2002.

CHAPTER 12 189 “Every day there’s a problem to solve.”: Pleasantville DVD composer commentary, New Line Studios, 1999. 189 “I think the basic process…get the right thing.”: Karlin, Jerry Goldsmith: Film Music Masters (1995), Karlin/Til-ford Productions, September, 1994. 189 “I’m an audience member…from the movie.”: Koppl, Unbreakable, p. 20. 190 “I like to write…start to score.”: Rudy Koppl, “Mark Mancina: The Real Thing,” Soundtrack Vol. 17/No. 68, Winter, 1998/99, p. 44. 190 “I go through a period…through the rest of the movie.”: Ford A. Thaxton, Transcribed and edited by Randall D. Larson, “Danny Elfman Revists Planet of the Apes,” Soundtrack Vol. 20/No. 79, Fall, 2001, p. 4. 190 “I know that I look at a film…on what’s necessary.”: Karlin. 191 “It’s daunting for me…the last time I batted?’”: “Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace” Soundtrack Vol. 18/No. 70, Summer, 1999, p. 11. 191 “The great part…Fear is a given.”: Karlin. 192 “When you sit down…it ain’t so easy.”: Karlin. 192 “The fear is like a pyramid…. That’s the hard part.”: Rudy Koppl, “James Newton Howard Scoring the Impossible: Unbreakable” Music from the Movies Issue 30, Feb/ March, 2001, p. 16. 194 “I don’t come up with…really the structure.”: Randall D. Larson, “The Music of Bagger Vance: Rachel Portman and the Essence of Emotion,” Soundtrack Vol. 19/No. 76, Winter, 2000, p. 62.

CHAPTER 13

Glossary

771

197 “I love it when the score…thematic material.”: Soundtrack Vol 17/No.65, March, 1998, p. 5. 197 “The most exciting is…that’s the big high.”: Randall D. Larson, “The Music of Bagger Vance: Rachel Portman and the Essence of Emotion,” Soundtrack Vol. 19/No. 76, Winter, 2000, p. 63.

CHAPTER 15 279 “getting the tempo…go along with the action.”: Hollow Man DVD composer commentary, Columbia Tri-Star, 2002

CHAPTER 16 297 “The movie has more than mere action…eventually turned out.”: Jeff Bond, “The Fruit for Their Labor: Jerry Goldsmith and Phil Alden Robinson Discuss The Sum of All Fears,” Film Score Monthly July, 2002, Volume 7, Number 5, pp. 20–21. 299 “If I had put that same…a signpost of sorts.”: Rudy Koppl, “The Shipping News: Christopher Young Scoring Director Lasse Hallstrom’s Journey of Self-Discovery,” Music from the Movies Issue 33, May, 2002, p. 48. 312 “We recorded with…a number of soloists.”: Rudy Koppl, “Tan Dun: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” Music from the Movies Issue 31/32, Winter, 2001, p. 49. 319– “When I made my kneejerk…with a solo trum 320 pet.”: Rudy Koppl, “James Newton Howard Scoring the Impossible: Unbreakable, with Director M. Night Shyamalan,” Music from the Movies Issue 30, Feb/March 2001, p. 14. 320 “When you have nine days…absolutely physically impossible.”: Rudy Koppl, “On the Edge of Madness: Marco Beltrami Scores the Sci-Fi Cinematic Blood Fest,” Soundtrack Vol 21/No. 81, Spring, 2002, p. 7. 325 “I think a fine orchestrator’s…with his feeling.”: Elmer Bernstein, Film Music Notebook, Spring, 1975, p. 16.

CHAPTER 18 342 “I usually figure to record…fifth day in there.”: Karlin, Jerry Goldsmith: Film Music Masters (1995), Karlin/Til-ford Productions, September, 1994. 349 “A lot of times on a complicated cue…the brass are too loud.’” Karlin. 349 “You may be there…that brief period of time.”: Karlin.

CHAPTER 20

Glossary

772

370 “One of the things…it’s the samples!”: Dave White, “A Show of Hans,” Soundtrack Vol 20/No. 78, Summer, 2001, p. 10. 370 “Some of the brass stuff…trumpets can’t do.”: “Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace” Soundtrack Vol. 18/No. 70, Summer, 1999, p. 9. 370 “A big part of it…all the processing.”: Rudy Koppl, “Monster’s Ball with Thad Spencer and director Marc Forster,” Music from the Movies Issue 34, July/August, 2002, p. 43. 374– “I began by choosing…stones, water, wood, 375 wind.”: Blair Witch II DVD composer commentary, Artisan Entertainment, 2002.

CHAPTER 22 425 “The ability to manage…meet the deadline [on JAG].”: Jeff Bond, “Flying High,” Film Score Monthly October, 2002, Volume 7, Number 8, p. 16. 430 “I’ve learned to delegate…because of the story.”: ibid. 433 “I was given a directive…more like individual minimovies.”: Randall D. Larson, Alf Clausen on Scoring The Simpsons and Half-Baked, Soundtrack Vol. 17/No.66, June, 1998, pp. 26–27.

Bibliography

773

BIBLIOGRAPHY A selected bibliography for reference and additional reading. Out of print books may be available in libraries; to purchase, search the Internet for out-of-print and used books. Publications discussing electronic music, recording sound, and other similar subjects become out of date quickly; while retaining a great deal of timeless information; locate the most up-to-date resources on these subjects. Conducting Labuta, Joseph A. Basic Conducting Techniques. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994. Rudolf, Max. The Grammar of Conducting: A Comprehensive Guide to Baton Technique and Interpretation. New York: Schirmer Books, 1950, 1980. 3rd edition, Wadsworth, 1995. Electronic Music Collins, Mike E. Pro Tools for Music Production: Recording, Editing, and Mixing. Burlington, MA: Focal Press, 2001. Maguire, James, and Jim Louderback. TechTV’s Secrets of the Digital Studio: Insider’s Guide to Desktop Recording. Indianapolis, IN: Que Publishing, Book and CD-ROM edition, 2002. Owsinski, Bobby. The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard, 1999. Periodicals

Electronic Musician, 6400 Hollis St., Emeryville, CA 94608. Keyboard Magazine, Music Player Publications, San Mateo, CA 94403. Film Directors Directors Guild of America. Directors Guild of America Directory (regularly updated). Los Angeles: Directors Guild of America (7950 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90056). Singer, Michael. Film Directors: A Complete Guide. Annual. Beverly Hills: Lone Eagle Press, 9903 Santa Monica Blvd, #204, Beverly Hills, CA. Filmmakers Chell, David. Movie Makers at Work. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 1987. Interviews. Pincus, Edward, and Steven Ascher. The Film Maker’s Handbook. New York: Plume

Bibliography

774

Books, 1984. Singleton, Ralph. Film Maker’s Dictionary. Beverly Hills: Lone Eagle, 9903 Santa Monica Blvd, #204, Beverly Hills, CA 90212, 1986. Film Music Brown, Royal S. Overtones and Undertones: Reading Film Music. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994. Burlingame, Jon. TV’s Biggest Hits: The Story of Television Themes from “Dragnet” to “Friends”. New York: Schirmer Books, 1996. Burt, George. The Art of Film Music. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1994. Darby, William, and Jack Du Bois. American Film Music: Major Composers, Techniques, Trends, 1915–1990. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 1990. Eisler, Hanns, and Theodor Adorno. Composing for the Films. New York: Oxford University Press, 1947; Athlone Press, 1994. Evans, Mark. Soundtrack: The Music of the Movies. New York: Da Capo Press, 1979. Karlin, Fred. Listening to Movies: The Film Lover’s Guide to Film Music. New York: Schirmer Books, 1994. MacDonald, Laurence E. The Invisible Art of Film Music. New York: Ardsley House, 1998. Marmorstein, Gary. Hollywood Rhapsody: Movie Music and Its Makers, 1900 to 1975. New York: Schirmer Books, 1997. Palmer, Christopher. The Composer in Hollywood. New York and London: Marion Boyars, 1990. Prendergast, Roy M. Film Music: A Neglected Art; A Critical Study of Music in Films. New York: W.W. Norton, 1977. Schelle, Michael. The Score: Interviews with Film Composers. Beverly Hills, CA: Silman-James Press, 1999. Thomas, Tony. Music for the Movies. Cranbury, NJ: A.S. Barnes, 1973. ——. Film Score: The Art & Craft of Movie Music. Burbank, CA: Riverwood Press, 1991. Filmographies/Composers and scores Lone Eagle Publishing Company. Film Composers Directory, 5th edition. Los Angeles, California: Lone Eagle, 2000. McCarty, Clifford. Film Composers in America: A Filmography, 1911–1970. 2nd edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Film and Television Producers Broughton, Irv. Producers on Producing: The Making of Film and Television. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1986. Film and Television Production Hollywood Creative Directory: Film Directors (annual). Hollywood, CA: IFILM publishing. Web site: www.ifilmpro.com.

Bibliography

775

Hollywood Creative Directory: Producers (published three times a year). Hollywood, CA: IFILM Publishing (www.ifilmpro.com). Hollywood Production Manual, The (annual). Hollywood: 1322 N. Cole Ave., Hollywood, CA 90028. Source of union/guild rates and production facilities. Hollywood Reporter Blu-Book. A fine resource for contact information, facilities, and other related matters. Web site: www.hollywoodreporter.com/blubook. Periodicals Daily Variety, 5700 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 120, Los Angeles, CA 9003. The Hollywood Reporter, 5055 Wilshire Blvd., 6th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90036. Film Scoring Davis, Richard. Complete Guide to Film Scoring: The Art and Business of Writing Music for Movies and TV. Boston, MA: Berklee Press, 1999. Hagen, Earle. Scoring for Films. New York: Criterion Music, 1971. ——. Advanced Scoring for Films. Century City, CA: E.D.J. Music, 1989. Rona, Jeff. The Reel World: Scoring for Pictures. San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2000. Rose, Cameron. The Click Book. Film Music Publications is the retail distributor for this (see Film Music Network under “Music and Film Music Business,” or it can be purchased through Film Score Monthly (Website:filmscoremonthly.com). Filmographies Halliwell, Leslie. Halliwell’s Film Guide. 5th ed. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1986. Maltin, Leonard. Leonard Maltin’s TV Movies and Video Guide (annual). New York: Signet Books (New American Library). Marill, Alvin H. Movies Made for Television: The Telefeature and the Mini-series (1964– 1986). New York: New York Zoetrope, 1987. Music and Film Music Business Brabec, Jeffery, and Todd Brabec. Music Money and Success: The Insiders’s Guide to Making Money in the Music Business. New York: Schirmer Books, 1994; 3d edition, Music Sales Ltd., 2002. Fink, Michael. Inside the Music Business: Music in Contemporary Life. New York: Schirmer Books, 1989. Passman, Donald S. All You Need to Know About the Music Business. New York: Simon & Schuster; revised and updated edition 2000. Rachlin, Harvey. The Encyclopedia of the Music Business. New York: Harper & Row, 1981. Shemel, Sidney, and M. William Krasilovsky. More About This Business of Music. New York: Billboard Publications, 1985. ——. This Business of Music: The Definitive Guide to the Music Industry. New York: Billboard Publications, 1979; 8th edition, New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 2000. The Film Music Network online store at http://store.yahoo.com/frnstore/booksreference.html, has many helpful business

Bibliography

776

resources available. Music Composition Cope, David. New Directions in Music. Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown, 1971. Discusses avant-garde procedures and notation. Dallin, Leon. Techniques of Twentieth-Century Composition. Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown, 1957. Fink, Robert, and Robert Ricci. The Language of Twentieth Century Music: A Dictionary of Terms. New York: Schirmer Books, 1975. Gerou, Tom, and Linda Lusk. Essential Dictionary of Music Notation: The Most Practical and Concise Source for Music Notation. New York: Alfred Publishing Company, 1996. Mathieu, W.A. Harmonic Experience: Tonal Harmony from Its Natural Origins to Its Modern Expression. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International, 1997. Persichetti, Vincent. Twentieth-Century Harmony. New York: W.W. Norton, 1961. Reti, Rudolph. The Thematic Process in Music. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978. Russo, William, with Jeffrey Ainis and David Stevenson. Composing Music. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1983. Music Editing Lustig, Milton. Music Editing for Motion Pictures. New York: Hastings House, 1980. Pre-digital music editing. Orchestration/Arranging Adler, Samuel. The Study of Orchestration. New York: W.W. Norton, 1982. Black, Dave, and Tom Gerou. Essential Dictionary of Orchestration. New York: Alfred Publishing Company, 1998. Kennan, Kent Wheeler, and Donald Grantham. The Technique of Orchestration (6th Edition). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002 Mancini, Henry. Sounds and Scores: A Practical Guide to Professional Orchestration. Greenwich, CT: Northridge Music, 1962, 1967, 1973. Ostrander, Arthur, and Dana Wilson. Contemporary Choral Arranging. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986. Read, Owen T., and Joel T. Leach. Scoring for Percussion. Melville, NY: Belwyn-Mills, 1978. Russo, William. Jazz Composition and Orchestration. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. Wright, Rayburn. Inside the Score. Delevan, New York: Kendor Music, 1982. Periodicals and Journals Film Score Monthly. Vineyard Haven LLC., 8503 Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232. The only monthly film music journal with news, interviews, reviews, and articles. Subscribe and support this journal. Hollywood Reporter: Film & TV Music Special Issue (four times a year, in January,

Bibliography

777

April, August, and November). Music from the Movies. Flat 402, 51–02 Apartments, St. James Barton, Bristol, BS1 3LY, Great Britain. Published quarterly. Interviews, articles, and reviews of great interest to all fans and practitioners of film music. Subscribe and support this journal. Soundtrack. c/o Luc Van de Ven, Astridlaan 171, 2800, Mechelen, Belgium. Published quarterly until 2003; possibly annually thereafter. Back issues are very informative, with interesting articles, interviews with composers, and photographs. Recording Eargle, John. Sound Recording. 2d edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1980. Runstein, Robert E., and David Miles Huber. 2d edition. Modern Recording Techniques. Indianapolis: Howard W. Sams, 1986. Tremaine, Howard M. The Audio Cyclopedia. Indianapolis: Howard W. Sams, 1982. Wadams, Wayne. Dictionary of Music Production and Engineering Terminology. New York, Schirmer Books, 1988. ——. Sound Advice: The Musician’s Guide to the Record Industry. New York, Schirmer Books, 1990. ——. Sound Advice: The Musician’s Guide to the Record Studio. New York, Schirmer Books, 1990. Woram, John M. The Recording Studio Handbook. Plainview, NY: Elar Publishing, 1982. Periodicals Home Recording, Cherry Lane Magazines, LLC, 6 East 32nd St., 11 th Fl. New York, NY 10016. Mix Magazine, PRIMEDIA Business Magazines & Media, 6400 Hollis Street, Suite 12, Emeryville, CA 94608. Recording Magazine, Music Maker Publications, Inc., 5412 Odylwild Trail, Suite 100, Boulder, CO 80301–3523. Songwriting Davis, Sheila. The Craft of Lyric Writing. Cincinnati, OH: Writer’s Digest Books, 1985. Kasha, Al, and Joel Hirschhorn. If They Ask You, You Can Write a Song. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1979. Wilder, Alec. American Popular Songs: The Great Innovators, l900–1950. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. Soundtracks Burlingame, Jon. Sound and Vision: 60 Years of Motion Picture Soundtracks. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 2000. Web Sites The following list is meant to be helpful in suggesting some of the resources available on the Internet. Site locations change from time to time, and helpful new sites come online

Bibliography

778

frequently. Composers (a representative sampling) John Barry www.johnbarry.org.uk Elmer Bernstein www.elmerbernstein.com Chris Boardman www.chrisboardmanmusic.com Pieter Bourke www.pieterbourke.com Alf Clausen www.alfclausen.com Don Davis www.dondavis.filmmusic.com John Debney www.johndebney.com Lisa Gerrard www.lisagerrard.com Jerry Goldsmith www.jerrygoldsmithonline.com Dave Grusin www.davegrusin.com Bernard Herrmann www.bernardherrmann.org James Horner www.james-horner.com Mark Isham www.isham.com Laura Karpman www.laurakarpman.com Erich Wolfgang Korngold www.korngoldsociety.org Mark Mancina www.mediaventures.com/htmls/mark_b.html Mark McKenzie www.markmckenzie.org Gil Mellé www.gilmelle.com/default.htm Johnny Mercer www.johnnymercer.com Ennio Morricone www.morricone.de Jerome Moross www.moross.com Alex North www.alexnorthmusic.com Basil Pouledoris www.basilpoledouris.com Jonathan Price www.members.aol.com/jprice5000 Trevor Rabin www.nfte.org/Trevor.Rabin Graeme Revell www.graemerevell.com Jeff Rona www.jeffrona.com Miklós Rósza www.comcen.com.au/~agfam/miklos/pms.html Nino Rota www.ninorota.com Lalo Schifrin www.schifrin.com Marc Shaiman www.marcshaiman.com Howard Shore www.howardshore.com Michael Whalen www.michaelwhalen.com John Williams www.johnwilliams.org Christopher Young www.christopher-young.com Hans Zimmer www.mediaventures.com/htmls/zimmer_b.html Film Music Journals Film Score Monthly www.filmscoremonthly.com Music from the Movies www.musicfromthemovies.com Soundtrack www.soundtrackmag.com General Information Internet Movie Data Base www.imdb.com

Bibliography

779

SoundtrackNet: The Art of Film and Television Music www.filmmusic.com Judy Green Music www.judygreenmusic.com Organizations A.F. of M. www.afm.org ASCAP www.ascap.com BMI www.bmi.com/home.asp Film Music Network www.filmmusic.net Film Music Society www.filmmusicsociety.org Film Musicians Secondary Market Fund www.mpspf.org RMA (Los Angeles Chapter) www.rmala.org SESAC www.sesac.com The Society of Composers and Lyricists www.filmscore.org Technical Auricle: The Film Composers’ Time Processor www.Auricle.com Cueline Aps of Denmark www.cueline.com

Bibliography

780

MUSIC EXCERPTS The following list includes all excerpts from scores illustrated in the text. Refer to the Index for excerpts cross-referenced under each individual composer. AFFAIR OF THE NECKLACE, THE (2001) David Newman 1M1 Logo/Opening Figure 11.1 pp. 183–184 AGNES OF GOD (1985) Georges Delerue 1M1 Main Title Figure 10.2 p. 136 7M1A Let Me Help You Figure 10.14 p. 157 A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (2001) John Williams 2M1 Reading the Words Figure 10.6 p. 142 1MA Cryogenics Figure 13.19 p. 216 1M6 Hide and Seek Figure 14.24 p. 255 ALIEN (1979) Jerry Goldsmith R4-P2 The Skeleton Figure 14.23 pp. 254–255 ALONG CAME A SPIDER (2001) Jerry Goldsmith 1M2 Megan’s Abduction Figure 10.17 p. 164 3M6 Cop Killer Figure 10.18 p. 165 4M3 Where’s Megan? Figure 10.24 p. 172 5M4 Not My Partner Figure 14.2 p. 226 3M6 Cop Killer Figure 15.8 p. 290 3M6 Cop Killer Figure 15.9 pp. 291–293 ALTERED STATES (1980) John Corigliano M5/1 Fireworks Figure 16.8 pp. 314–318 AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999) Thomas Newman 4M1 Paper Bag Figure 10.10 pp. 149–150 AMERICAN HISTORY X (1998) Anne Dudley 4M1 Flashback/Derek Arrested Figure 10.4 p. 139 1Ma Main Title Figure 10.21 p. 168–169 1Ma Main Title Figure 10.25 p. 172 1M1a Main Title Figure 13.8 p. 205 AMERICAN PRESIDENT, THE (1995) Marc Shaiman 1M1 Main Title Figure 6.11 pp. 89–90 BANDITS (2001) Christopher Young 6M7 Ingenious Escape Figure 21.3 p. 384 BASIC INSTINCT (1992) Jerry Goldsmith R1 Pt 3 Main Title Figure 14.4 pp. 228–229 BATMAN (1989) Danny Elfman 4M2 Shootout Figure 10.23 p. 171 BEING THERE (1979) Johnny Mandel M12/20 Goodbye Louise Figure 6.2 p. 66

Bibliography

781

BODY HEAT (1981) John Barry M12–1 Better Get Him Figure 10.13a, b pp. 155–156 BRAINSTORM (1983) James Horner 6M1 Figure 10.15 pp. 158–159 7M3 Figure 10.22 pp. 170–171 10M3 Figure 13.6 p. 203 5M3 Figure 14.28 pp. 260–261 12M3 Figure 16.1 p. 298 BRAVEHEART (1995) James Horner 1M1 Main Title Figure 13.20 p. 217 1M1 Main Title Figure 13.21 p. 217 4M1 Wallace Courts Murron Figure 14.6 pp. 230–232 1M1Main Title Figure 14.7 p. 232 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER Christophe Beck 4M1 The Wish (Season 3) Figure 22.2 pp. 427–428 CELL, THE (2000) Howard Shore M1 Figure 6.16 p. 97 CHICKEN RUN (2000) John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams Theme Figure 3.2 p. 23 CHOCOLAT (2000) Rachel Portman 1M3 Other Possibilities Figure 6.3 pp. 66–69 1M5 Vianne Paints Shop Figure 6.12 pp. 91–93 6M1 The Mayan Bowl Breaks Figure 10.8 p. 145 1M10A/B Compte’s Breakfast Figure 14.8 p. 223 CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR, THE (1986) Alan Silvestri The Glacier Trek Figure 20.3 pp. 376–378 CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) John Williams 11/2–12/1 The Mountain Figure 6.5 p. 74 11/2–12/1 The Mountain Figure 13.7 p. 204 7/1 Barry is Kidnapped Figure 15.10 p. 294 15/3 The Arrival of the Mother Ship Figure 16.5 pp. 305–307 CONFIDENCE (2003) Christophe Beck 4M33 Intuition Figure 21.6 pp. 389–391 CRASH (1996) Howard Shore 1M1 Main Title Figure 20.1 p. 371 DEEP END, THE (2001) Peter Nashel 1M2 Lake Tahoe and The Deep End Theme Figure 21.17 pp. 417–418 DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN (1985) Thomas Newman Port Authority Figure 21.7 p. 392 DIRTY HARRY (1972) Lalo Schifrin R 10-P2 Francis Drake Boulevard Figure 14.21 p. 252 DRAGONSLAYER (1981) Alex North Three Cells Figure 13.14a, 13.14b. 13.14c p. 212 Three Cells Combined Figure 13.15 pp. 212–213 EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (1990) Danny Elfman

Bibliography

782

1M1A Main Title Figure 6.8 pp. 81–84 ELEPHANT MAN, THE (1980) John Morris M11 Main Title Figure 6.15 p. 96 E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982) John Williams M114/121 The Departure Figure 14.14 p. 244 M72/81 E.T.’s Machine Figure 16.9 p. 319 eXistenZ (1999) Howard Shore M1 Main Title Figure 13.9 p. 206 M1 Main Title Figure 13.10 pp. 206–207 FUGITIVE, THE (1993) James Newton Howard 8M2 Stairway Chase Figure 14.30 pp. 263–265 4M3 Kimble in the River Figure 14.31 p. 266 5M2 Kimble Dyes His Hair Figure 14.32 p. 267 4M2 The Sewer Figure 15.5 p. 286 GIFT, THE (2000) Christopher Young 2M2 Donnie Figure 10.7 pp. 143–144 GLADIATOR (2000) Hans Zimmer The Gladiator Waltz Figure 7.1 pp. 105–106 3M11 The Bodies (Lisa Gerrard and Hans Zimmer) Figure 13.24 pp. 220–221 1M1 Strength and Honor Part 2 Figure 14.11 pp. 237–239 Rhythm sketch Figure 15.2 p. 282 Music rhythm sketch derived from Figure 15.2 Figure 15.3 p. 283 GLORY (1989) James Horner 1M1 Main Title Figure 6.7 pp. 78–80 GODFATHER, THE (1972) Nino Rota 19 M2 Finale Consisting of The Godfather Waltz Figure 13.17 p. 214 GRAND CANYON (1991) James Newton Howard 1M1A The Playground Figure 21.1a p. 382 1M1A The Playground Figure 21.1b p. 382–383 15M1A Grand Canyon Figure 21.2 p. 383 GREAT ESCAPE, THE (1963) Elmer Bernstein Theme Figure 3.1 p. 22 GREEN MILE, THE (1999) Thomas Newman 4M5 Drive to Lawyer Figure 6.14 p. 95 HARRY POTTER AND THE SOCERER’S STONE (2001) John Williams 1M1 The Prologue Figure 10.16 pp. 160–163 HOLLOW MAN (2000) Jerry Goldsmith R6 Pt.3 The Elevator Figure 14.33 pp. 268–269 HOOSIERS (1986) Jerry Goldsmith 7/1 The Coach Stays Figure 21.8 pp. 393–395 HURRICANE, THE (1999) Christopher Young 6M6 Telling the Story Pt. 3 & 4 Figure 6.4 pp. 70–72 3M7 Put Him in the Hole Figure 21.9 pp. 395–396 INSIDE THE THIRD REICH (1982) Fred Karlin 16/3 The New Building Figure 14.3 p. 227

Bibliography

783

INSIDER, THE (1999) Lisa Gerrard and Pieter Bourke 13M1 Sacrifice Figure 21.18 pp. 420–421 JAWS (1975) John Williams M-101 Jaws Titles Figure 13.1 p. 198 K-PAX (2001) Edward Shearmur 3M17 Constellation Lyra Figure 10.9 pp. 146–148 LAW AND ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT (2001) Mike Post Theme Figure 22.1 p. 427 LEADBELLY (1976) Fred Karlin M91 Leadbelly Escapes (Part 3) Figure 14.13 pp. 241–243 LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, THE (2001) Howard Shore 4B A Knife in the Dark Figure 6.6 pp. 75–77 MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, THE (1960) Elmer Bernstein 1/3 Council Figure 14.29 p. 262 MAN IN THE MOON, THE (1991) James Newton Howard 2M1 Dani Runs out the Back Door Figure 6.13 p. 94 MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN, THE (1983) Henry Mancini The Analyst Resigns Figure 14.15 p. 245 MATRIX, THE (1999) Don Davis 1M7 Neo on the Edge Figure 13.12 pp. 208–210 1M7 Neo on the Edge Figure 13.13 p. 211 1M2 Trinity Infinity Figure 14.12 p. 240 MINORITY REPORT (2002) John Williams 5M2 Robotic Spyders Figure 13.3 p. 199 3M1 Anderton on the Run Figure 15.1 pp. 280–282 NAKED LUNCH (1991) Howard Shore 3M2 Figure 14.38 pp. 276–277 NINE TO FIVE (1980) Charles Fox M-7/2 Violet Steals Body Figure 10.3 p. 138 10/2 Office Montage Figure 21.10 pp. 397–400 “ODYSSEY 5” (2002) Laura Karpman 1M15 Enter Bad Guys Episode #103 Figure 22.3 pp. 431–432 OMEN, THE (1976) Jerry Goldsmith R 2 P5/R3 P1 I Was There Figure 13.18 p. 215 R11-P3 The Demise of Mrs. Baylock Figure 14.19 p. 249–251 R12-P3 “Ave Satani” Figure 14.20 pp. 252 R12-P3 “Ave Satani” Figure 15.7a, b, c pp. 288–289 R11-P1 The Bed Figure 16.11 pp. 321–323 OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, THE (1976) Jerry Fielding 9M2C The Violators Figure 10.12 pp. 153–154 9M2C The Violators Figure 14.22 p. 253 PATRIOT, THE (2000) John Williams 2M4 Remembering Fort Wilderness Figure 13.11 p. 208 PATTON (1970) Jerry Goldsmith

Bibliography

784

R 1 P2/R2 P1 Main Title Figure 13.22 p. 218 PAYBACK (1999) Chris Boardman 1M4 Main Title Figure 21.11 p. 401–405 PAY IT FORWARD (2000) Thomas Newman 7M5 Aftermath Figure 10.11 pp. 151–152 2M7 Class Presentation Figure 21.5 pp. 387–383 PETER THE GREAT (1986) Laurence Rosenthal Theme Figure 6.10 p. 88 PETROUSHKA (1911) Igor Stravinsky Figure 14.9b p. 234 PLANET OF THE APES (1968) Jerry Goldsmith R3 P1 The Search Continues Figure 13.16 p. 213 POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, THE (1981) Michael Small Main Title Figure 14.35 pp. 271–273 2/2 The Kitchen Figure 14.36 pp. 273–274 RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983) John Williams R9 Pt. 2 Brother and Sister Figure 10.27 pp. 174–176 ROAD TO PERDITION (2002) Thomas Newman 1M1 Main Title Figure 6.9 p. 86 4M1 Drive to Chicago Figure 14.1 pp. 224–226 “ROCKFORD FILES” (1975) Mike Post and Pete Carpenter Theme Figure 6.1 pp. 64–65 ROCK STAR (2001) Trevor Rabin 5M41–42 Emily’s Leaving Figure 21.4 p. 386 ROMANCING THE STONE (1984) Alan Silvestri M132 The Big Burn Figure 15.6 p. 287 ROMEO AND JULIET (1968) Nino Rota M28 End Title Love Theme Figure 14.5 p. 230 RUSH HOUR (1998) Lalo Schifrin 1M2 Main Title Figure 21.12 pp. 406–407 3M4 Lee Chases Juntao Figure 21.13 pp. 408–410 SALVADOR (1986) Georges Delerue 4M2 El Playon Figure 10.5 pp. 140–141 SIGNS (2002) James Newton Howard 1M3 Death of Houdini Figure 13.4 p. 200 3M1 In the Cornfield Figure 13.5 pp. 201–202 1M1 Main Title Figure 16.7 p. 313 SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, THE (1991) Howard Shore 1M1 Main Title Figure 10.1 pp. 132–135 SIXTH SENSE,THE (1999) James Newton Howard 5M4 Kyra’s Ghost Figure 10.19 p. 166 5M7 Searching Kyra’s House Figure 10.20 p. 167 SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS (1999) James Newton Howard 2M6 Hatsue and Ishamel Kiss Figure 14.34 p. 270 2M3 Running along the Beach Figure 20.2 pp. 372–373

Bibliography

785

STAR CHAMBER, THE (1983) Michael Small M-11 Main Title Figure 14.27 pp. 258–259 STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982) James Horner M23/30 Khan Figure 10.26 p. 173 M11 Main Title Figure 16.4 pp. 301–304 STAR WARS (1977) John Williams Theme Figure 13.2 p. 199 Reel 1 Part 3 The War Figure 14.10 p. 235 “STRAVINSKY” CHORDS (1913) Igor Stravinsky Figure 14.9a p. 234 STIR CRAZY (1980) Tom Scott M10–1 Disappearing Duo Figure 21.14 pp. 411–412 SUM OF ALL FEARS, THE (2002) Jerry Goldsmith 5M1 Further Aggression Figure 15.4 p. 283–285 TAKEN (2002) Laura Karpman 0m3 Artemis Episode 2 Figure 22.4 pp. 434–435 TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE, THE (1974) David Shire Twelve-tone Row Figure 14.16 p. 246 Twelve-tone Row and Permutations Figure 14.17 p. 246 End Title Figure 14.18 pp. 247–248 THAT’S LIFE! (1986) Henry Mancini M-8 Remember Figure 14.26 p. 257 TOOTSIE (1982) Dave Grusin M 11(a) Main Title Figure 21.15 p. 413 M11(b) Main Title Figure 21.15 pp. 414–415 M-33 Figure 21.16 pp. 415–416 UNDER THE VOLCANO (1984) Alex North 7/2 Death of a Peasant (sketch) Figure 16.2 p. 299 7/2 Death of a Peasant (orchestration) Figure 16.3 p. 300 UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE (1967) Fred Karlin Theme with Bass Figure 13.23 p. 219 1B Halls/Classroom Figure 16.10 p. 319 VERDICT, THE (1982) Johnny Mandel 8M1 Figure 14.37 p. 275 VICTOR/VICTORIA (1982) Henry Mancini 8M-1 You Are Impotent Figure 11.2 p. 185 9M-1 Cat and Mouse Figure 11.3 p. 186 WAY WE WERE, THE (1973) Marvin Hamlisch M62 You Are Beautiful Figure 16.6 pp. 308–311 WHO WILL LOVE MY CHILDREN? (1983) Laurence Rosenthal Theme Figure 6.17 p. 98 WITNESS (1985) Maurice Jarre 1M1 Main Title Figure 20.4 p. 379 X-FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE (1998) Mark Snow

Bibliography

786

3M1 Figure 14.25 p. 256 YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974) John Morris Transylvania Lullaby Figure 3.3 p. 25

Bibliography

787

This page intentionally left blank.

Index

788

INDEX Pages with photographs are bold face. Significant subentries with the Index include: Budgets, Business, Composing, (the) Director, Dubbing, Electronic music and scoring, Ethnic/geographic, Harmony, Orchestration, Playing the drama, Recording: Scoring/the scoring stage, Role models, Scoring for television, Songs for films, Spotting the film, Timings and clicks, Using contemporary music, and Using rhythm.

A Acoustic recreations (electronic), 568–9 Acting, importance to composer, 79 Adagio for Strings (Samuel Barber), 67 and 726 (in Platoon) Adaptation, music used, scores written, Breaking Away (Mendelssohn and Rossini), 67, 114, 352 Mendelssohn, Felix, 54, 352 Platoon (Adagio for Strings), 82, 726 Prizzi’s Honor (Puccini and Rossini), 114, 300 Rossini, Gioacchino, 352 They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, 673 Adapting a theme, 352 Addison, John, 25, 355, 356, 483, 496, 561, 730, 734 Affair of the Necklace, The, 292, 294–6 (Fig. 11.1) Afterglow, (marked score), 522 (Fig. 18.1) A.F. of M. See American Federation of Musicians. Agents, composers’, 110 composer/agent deal points, 715–7 Agnes of God, 221, 226 (Fig. 10.2), 246, 255 (Fig. 10.14), 281 Agony and the Ecstasy, The, 317, 380 A.I. Artificial Intelligence, 235 (Fig. 10.6), 235, 282, 345, 348 (Fig. 13.19), 356, 381, 398 (Fig. 14.24) Airplane!, 288 Aleatoric textures and/or rhythms, 191, 443, 447, 450 (for study) Alien, 67, 381, 396 (Fig. 14.23) Aliens, 115 Alien3, 229 Allen, Peter (songwriter), 678–81 Almost Famous, 39, 555 Also spracht Zarathustra (Richard Strauss), 68, 289 All the President’s Men, 23 Along Came a Spider, 257, 259, 264 (Fig. 10.17), 266 (Fig. 10.18), 275 (Fig.10.24), 283, 360, 442 (Fig. 15.8), 444–6 (Fig. 15.9), 450 (for study)

Index

789

Altered States, 191, 447 (aleatoric), 450 (for study), 469, 471–5 (Fig. 16.8), 559 Altman, Robert (director/writer/producer), 180 Americana, 157, 158, 371 American Beauty,, xxi, 76, 120, 161, 241, 245–6 (Fig. 10.10), 283, 371, 419 (modal), 430, 478, 575 American Federation of Musicians (A. F. of M.), 99, 106 assumption agreement, 106 Health and Welfare, 106 Pension Plan, 105 scoring session requirements, 98–9 soundtrack albums, 726 union scale, 99, 501 (orchestration) American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), 101 American History X, 57, 173, 224, 230 (Fig. 10.4), 259, 267, 271 (Fig. 10.21), 275 (Fig. 10.25), 283, 322, 329, 333, 334 (Fig. 13.8) American in Paris, An, 668 American President, The, 155–6 (Fig. 6.11), 283, 356 Amiel, Jon (director), 152 And Justice for All, 216 Andromeda Strain, The, 568, 569 Animal House, 301 Anthony, Pete (orchestrator/conductor), 468, 470, 488, 490, 492, 497, 499, 517, 518, 520, 524, 526, 530, 734 Antz, 218, 280 Appalachian Spring, 372 Armageddon, 28, 184, 478, 547 Arnold, Malcom, 51 Arthur, 681 ASCAP, 110 See also Performance royalties. rates, 722–4 Asche and Spencer (composers), 569 Ashman, Howard (lyricist), 674 Assembly, film, 41 Assumption agreement (A. F. of M.), 106 Astair, Fred (actor/dancer), 540 Atmajian, Jeff (orchestrator), 155, 267, 268, 328 Audience expectations, 215, 286 Auricle Time Processor, 188, 199, 205, 207, 209, 520, 524 Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, 60, 112 Avalon, 558, 564 (for study) “Axel’s Theme,” 352 Ayling, Phil (president, RMA International, musician), 104, 725, 734 B Bach, Johanne Sebastian, 155 Bacharach, Burt, 20, 407, 681, 734 Back to the Future, 539 Badami, Bob (music editor), 25, 31, 64, 72, 129, 209–11, 532, 546, 554, 695, 734 Badly Drawn Boy, 641

Index

790

Bandits, 218, 537, 592, 593 (Fig. 21.3) Barber, Samuel, 67, 726 Barry, John, 60, 76, 85, 147, 245–6, 287, 292, 322, 356, 734 Body Heat, Better Get Him, 252–3 (Figs. 10.13 and 10.13 b) Bartek, Steve (orchestrator), 143, 519 Bartmus, Russ (music preparation), 530 Basic Instinct, 23, 286, 314, 358, 364, 365–6 (Fig. 14.4), 428 Batman, 265, 274 (Fig. 10.23), 324, 333, 355 Bay, Michael (director), 27 B.B.King (blues singer/musician), 638 Beatles, 39 (i am sam), 63, 642 Beautiful Mind, A, 282, 341, 355, 400, 420 (harmonic ostinatos) bebop, 142 Beck, Christophe, 19, 59, 69, 102, 176, 179, 572, 576, 583, 586, 599, 646, 655, 735 “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” season 3 (1998), The Wish, 648–9 (Fig. 22.2) Confidence, Intuition, 600–2 (Fig. 21.6), 715 Bedell, Steve (music executive), 33, 734 Beer, Hans (conductor), 6 Beethoven’s 2nd, 156, 287, 354 Beiderbecke, Bix (jazz cornetist), 293 Being There, 120, 124 (Fig. 6.2), 128 Bell, David, 113, 735 Beloved, 41 Beltrami, Marco, 479 Bennett, Harve (producer/writer), 25 Berg, Alban, 19 Bergman, Alan, 685, 688, 689, 691, 701–5, 735 Bergman, Alan and Marilyn, 678, 682, 685, 688, 689, 695, 701, 735 Bergman, Marilyn, 678, 685, 688, 689, 691, 701–5, 735 Berklee College of Music, 188, 204, 719–21 Berlioz, Hector, 54 Bernstein, Bill (music editor/Streamline), 209 Bernstein, Charles, 50, 99, 148, 166, 206, 288, 296, 495, 560, 735 Sadat, Jeep Chase, 206 (Fig. 9.1) Bernstein, Dick (Streamline), 210 Bernstein, Elmer, 5, 50, 77, 114, 157, 160, 188, 288, 301, 305, 357, 359, 386, 406 (Fig. 14.29), 428, 437, 484, 570, 695, 732, 735 The Great Escape, Theme, 50 (Fig. 3.1) The Magnificent Seven, Council, 406 (Fig. 14.29) “Best That You Can Do,” 678–81 Beverly Hills Cop, 290, 353, 696 Bibliography, 787–91 Big Chill, The, 695 Big Country, The, 156 Billy the Kid, 372 Birth of a Nation, The, 250 Black Hawk Down, 33, 129, 132, 171, 526, 594 Black Rain, 287, 430

Index

791

Black Stallion Returns, The, 146 Blade II, 180 Blatt, Dan (producer), 148 Blue and the Gray, The, 85 “Blue Danube, The,” 66 blues, 120, 129, 160 Blume in Love, 7 BMI, 110, 722–3. See also Performance royalties. Boardman, Chris, 160, 438, 603, 642 Payback, Main Title, 613–7 (Fig. 21.11) Body Heat, 75, 245–6, 252 (Fig. 10.13 a), 253 (Fig. 10.13b), 358 Bolero, 39 Booth representative, 520 Botnick, Bruce (mixer), 530 Bourke, Pieter, 5, 171, 180, 283, 448, 573, 626, 632–3, 643, 736 The Insider, Sacrifice, 635–7 (Fig. 21.18) w/Gerrard Brainstorm, 249, 257–60 (Fig. 10.15), 264, 273–4 (Fig. 10.22), 328, 331 (Fig. 13.6), 347, 386, 404–5 (Fig. 14.28), 453 (Fig. 16.1), 577 Brant, Henry (orchestrator), 456 Bramson, Steve, 645, 653 Braveheart, 169–70, 228, 281, 345–7, 349 (Fig. 13.20 and Fig. 13.21), 356, 364, 370 (Fig. 14.7), 419 (modal) Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 322 Breaking Away, 67, 114, 352 Breil, Joseph Carl, 251 Bricusse, Leslie (lyricist), 691, 693 Bridges, 79 Brinkman, Alexander R. (creator of On the Track click book), 191 (Fig. 8.2), 193, 195, 196 (Fig. 8.5) Brooks, Mel (director/writer/producer), 39, 54, 540 Brooks, Richard (director/writer/producer), 314 Broughton, Bruce, 5, 34, 49, 75, 85, 305, 550, 645, 651, 736 Bruckheimer, Jerry (producer), 27, 547, 695 Buddy Baker Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program (USC), 188, 709 Budgets, 96–112, 724 budget estimates, 110–2 changes on the scoring stage, 535 composing fees, 109 cost factors, 96, 97–101 copying costs, 99–101, 112, 115 doubling scale, 99 low budget movies, 104 low budgets, 183–4 nonunion musicians and scoring, 102–6 number of minutes recorded, 99, 101 orchestration fees, 112, 501 overdubbing, stacking, 101

Index

792

package deals, 96–7, 109 planning orchestra sessions, 97, 108 scoring session requirements, 98 singers, 102 small budgets, 102 out of town sessions, 101 union scale, overscale, 99, 111 “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” 586 (for study), 645, 648–9 (Fig. 22.2), 654 Burnett, John (film editor), 29, 64, 216, 514, 668, 735 Burwell, Carter, 171, 578, 643 Business, the film music, 709–29 agents, 110, 715–7 deal points with, 717 ASCAP, BMI, performance royalties, 110, 719 rates, 723 back-end deals, 106, 719–21 being heard, 715 commercials, 709–10, 721 the composer as entrepreneur, 727–9 demo CDs, 713–5 Face/Off 714 fees, 104, 718 film and television deal points, 717–21 Footloose, 700 getting the job, 709–13 living in Los Angeles, 711 music executives, 710 music supervisors, 710–3 television, 710 hit records, 695 licensing, 724–5 moving from television to film, 713 music budgets, 723 music supervisors, 710–3 package deals, 96–7, 109, 720 preparing special demos, 713 soundtrack albums and singles, 726–7 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 407 Butcher Boy, The, 119 “By Strauss,” 668 C Cacavas, John, 154, 188, 428, 483, 735 Cage, John, 5 Cahill, Brendon (music executive), 4, 735 Calculator method for timings (Appendix C), 766–8 Callery, Sean, 8, 205, 646, 653, 658, 736 Cameron, James (director/writer/producer), 693

Index

793

Camille, 56 Campbell, David (rerecording mixer), 557, 561, 735 Campbell, James (orchestrator), 439 Campbell, Martin (director/producer), 178 Carlin, Daniel Allan (music editor/music supervisor/conductor), 31, 60, 64, 66, 68, 72, 73, 79, 189, 532, 541, 550, 551, 557, 559, 561, 735 Carlin, Tom (music editor), 4 Carmina burana, 60 Carpenter, Pete, 60–123, 590, 645 “The Rockford Files,” Theme, 645 (Fig. 6.1) Carson, Jeff (music editor), 60 Carter, Chris (producer/writer), 651–2 Caruso, Johnny (music editor), 21, 62, 735 Casablanca, 292 Casanova, 115 Catch Me If You Can, 598 Cat People, 568 Cats & Dogs, 53 Cell, The, 6, 164, 167 (Fig. 6.16), 170, 304–6, 642 (for study) Celtic music, 170, 317 Central character, 128 City Lights, 252 Changes, 183, 530 and 533–5 (on scoring stage), 535 (and the budget) Chandler, Bodie (music executive), 96, 97, 535, 713, 735 Chaplin, Charles (producer/director/actor/composer), 251 Chaplin, Saul (music director), 668 Characterization, musical, 128 Charade, 50 Charbonneau, Jeff (music editor), 31, 58, 66, 645, 735 Chariots of Fire, 143, 353 Charlie’s Angels: American Beauty, 60, 220 Chataway, Jay 9 Chemical Brothers, 53, 58, 175 Chicken Run, 50, 52 (Fig. 3.2), 288 Chinatown, 314 Chocolat, 115, 120, 124–9 (Fig. 6.3), 158–61 (Fi.g. 6.12), 171, 236, 238, 239 (Fig. 10.8), 282, 342, 356, 371, 419 (modal) Chomsky, Marvin (director/producer), 79 Cidar House Rules, The, 235, 237 Clan of the Cave Bear, 580–3 (Fig. 20.3), 586 (for study) Classical music, 156, 158 Clue, 290 Clausen, Alf, 651, 659 Click book, 191 (12-frame click, Fig. 8.2), 193, 194, 196 (13-frame click, (Fig. 8.5) Carroll Knudson, 193 Alexander R. Brinkman, 193, 195 The Click Book, 194 Clicks. See Timings and clicks.

Index

794

Click track to metronome conversions, 194 (Fig. 8.4) Clinton, George S., 114 Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 132, 135 (Fig. 6.4), 215, 286, 328 (w/motif), 332 (Fig. 13.7), 371, 447 (aleatoric), 449 (for study), 448 (Fig. 15.10, full score), 449 (for study), 454 Cobb, 54, 134 Cocoon, 419 (modal) Collateral Damage, 66, 443 (polyrhythms) Coleman, Gary (percussionist), 532 Coleman, Ornette (jazz saxophonist), 142, 164, 640 Comedy, 253, 288–90 Come sopras, 496–7 (Fig. 16.12) Commercials, 7, 709–10, 721 type casting, 298 Composer/agent deal points, 715–7 Composer’s booth representative, 520 Composer’s fees, 105, 717 Composing, 304–56, 653–4 (television) adapting a theme, 352 aleatoric textures, 191 analyzing the scene, 254 (playing the drama), 317–9 ballet, scoring film like a, 266, 270, 283 basso continuo, 399 before film is finished, 44–6 beginning the sketch, 317 catching the action, 255–65 clusters, 377, 381 commercials, 7, 297–8, 709–10, 721 concept, 119–71 contemporary scoring, 171–23 creating the master plan, 312 cut back cues (split chases), 204–5 developing the concept, 119–70 diatonic and chromatic harmony, 359–64 director/composer relationship, 19 (Elfman) dissonance and tension, 414, 417 dramatic theme, 18 (Platoon) ethnic to suggest locale, 146 exact repetition, 317 form, 314–7 function of score, 16 giving the melody character, 346 harmony resulting from linear writing, 381, 386 highlighting, 266, 284 hitting the action, 255–65 interweaving source and underscore, 300 intuition and the subconscious, 304 less is more, 304–249 main titles, 220–3

Index

795

minimalism, 161 modal harmony, 364, 371, 419 and 420 (for study) motifs, 129, 314, 323–41, 355 motivs. See motifs. operatic, 232, 234–453, 322 organizing the score, 312–4 ostinato, 341 pandiatonicism, 371, 419 (for study) pedal point, 385, 419 (for study) phrasing a sequence, 254, 283 pitch problems between source and underscore, 300 planning the score, 312 playing the drama, 215–83 audience expectations, 215, 286 de-emphasizing a scene, 247 don’t tip the story, 216, 278 highlighting, 266, 284 intensity, 232 less is more, 232–49, 281 playing against the picture, 132 playing the emotional subtext, 225–8 playing the overview, 132, 138 the use of silence, 247–50, 283 whose point of view to play?, 224, 281 playing through the drama, 250, 283 polytonality, 371, 372 (with another harmonic language), 419 (for study) process of elimination, 165, 169 pulse, 318 quartal harmony, 374 repetition, 317 research, 318 romantic, 357 sketching, 174, 305 scoring like a ballet, 267, 270, 283 serial technique. See Composing: twelve-tone technique. silence, 249–51, 283 source music, 39, 298–302 Split chases (cut backs), 205 surface or subtext emotions, 225–8, 281 commercials, 7, 297–8, 709–10, 721 tempo or pulse, 317–9 tension and release, 414, 418 theme for characterization, 129, 164 time to compose, 3, 8, 113–4 trailer music, 114 twelve-tone technique, 161, 374–5, 388 (Figs. 14.16 and 14.17), 389–90 (Pelham, Fig. 14.18), 419 (for study) two dramatic themes, 142

Index

796

two indendent lines, 347 two part counterpoint, 347 two-voice texture, 345–7 unaccompanied melody, 238, 341, 345 underscoring dialogue, 270–1, 275, 277–9, 285 understating the drama, 285–47 unity and variety, 315 using appropriate musical language, 400, 359–426 (chapter on harmony) using harmony, 359–426 using melody, 322–56 using orchestration, 129, 132, 452–501 using rhythm, 428–49 variable pulse, 319 what it takes, 3 working with other musicians, 308 work methods, mechanics of, 304–20 work process, 304 writer’s block, 309 writing to a drum machine tempo, 319 Composing fees, 109 Con Air, 27 Concept, 119–71 Conducting, 520, 523–9 aids, 525–6 aleatoric music, 189, 192 cue mixes, 528 problem solving, 530 Safan studied, 6 streamers and punches, 190, 525–6 translate to musical terms, 309 uneven meters, 524 warning clicks, 525 when electronic passages, 524 with click tracks, 524 with variable clicks, 205 Confidence, 599, 600–2 (Fig. 21.6) Contemporary music, 602–122, 589–642. See also Using contemporary music. Conti, Bill, 6, 17, 21, 23, 115, 119, 148, 470, 737 Contractor, music, 106–8 Composer’s checklist, 108–509 Copland, Aaron, 374 Copying time, 114 Copyist/librarian, composer’s checklist, 510–1 Corigliano, John, 229, 315, 324, 447 (aleatoric), 449 (for study), 469, 559, 730, 737 Altered States, Fireworks, 471–5 (Fig. 16.8) Cost factors, 96, 97–101 Count of Monte Cristo, The, 233

Index

797

Courage, Alexander (Composer/orchestrator), 352, 356, 365, 414, 448, 730, 737 Crash, 469, 571, 587 (for study) Craven, Wes (director/writer/producer), 297 Crimson Title, 287 Cronenberg, David (director), 142 Cross, Christopher (songwriter/singer), 678–81 “Crossing Jordan,” 663 (use of songs) Crossroads, 143 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 42, 429, 448 (for study) Crowe, Cameron (director/writer/producer), 39 Crowe, Maureen (music supervisor), 33–6, 710–3, 725–7, 737 Cue click, the, 528 Cueline Aps, 210 Crash, 571 (Fig. 20.1) Cut back cues (split chases), 204–5 Cutting film to music, 25 D Dairy of Anne Frank, The (sirens), 148 “Dancing in the Sheets,” 697 Dave, 419 (modal) Davis, Andrew (director/producer), 64 Davis, Don, 115, 256, 259, 323, 336–8, 372, 737 The Matrix, Neo on the Edge, 338–41 (Fig. 13.12) The Matrix, Neo on the Edge, 342 (Fig. 13.13) The Matrix, Trinity Infinity, 380 (Fig. 14.12) Days of Wine and Roses, 255 Dead hits, 78, 204, 255–9 and 265 (hitting the action), 284 (for study), 189, 198, 199–201 Deathtrap, 155 Debney, John, 39, 53, 133, 158, 171, 175, 178, 181, 304, 356, 737 Dechter, Brad (orchestrator), 327, 484, 486, 490, 492, 497, 499, 501, 573, 590, 591, 737 De Crescent, Sandy (music contractor), 96, 97, 101, 106–8, 725, 737 Deep Blue Sea, 323 Deep End, The, 539, 603, 624–5, 630–2 (Fig. 21.17) Delerue, Georges, 55, 67, 115, 147, 221, 229, 246, 281, 294, 300, 402, 738 Agnes of God, Let Me Help You, 255 (Fig. 10.14) Agnes of God, Main Title, 226 (Fig. 10.2) Salvador, El Playa, 232–3 (Fig. 10.5) Demme, Jonathan (director/producer/writer), 41, 228 Demos, 174–84, 713 – See also Mockups. Demonstrating the score, 173–84 on piano, 173, 179 Denison, Homer (orchestrator), 221 Desperately Seeking Susan, 375, 600, 605 (Fig. 21.7) Dialogue underscoring, 270–1, 275, 277–9, 285 Digital metronome, 193 Digital Performer, 175

Index

798

Director, the, 16–27 changes cues in dubbing, 234 communicates function of score, 16 (Wendkos), 22 communicating with, 16–20 (“romantic”), 20–1 (Jarre), 21 composer deals with, 19 (Elfman), 23 (Conti), director/composer relationship, 15, 16, 19, 21, 23, 25, 33, 39, 79 director/composer two-way dialogue, 23, 25 director/producer relationship, 15 edits to composer’s music, 25 first discussion after screening, 44 hitting the action, 259 insecurity of, 19 instruments, favorite and least favorite, 19 meeting on the set, 39, 41 mockups for, 178, 182, 532 on the scoring stage, 532 on the dubbing stage, 559–61 requests specific role model or style, 49, 66 score demonstrations influence, 79 (‘night, Mother), 183 Dirty Harry, 395 (Fig. 14.21) Django Reinhardt (jazz guitarist), 171 Documentaries, 151–2, 290–2 Doering, George (guitarist), 308, 595 Don’t Say a Word, 283, 448 (for study) Doyle, Patrick, 292 “Dragnet” theme, 289 Dragonfly, 358 Dragonslayer, 271, 293, 338, 340, 346 (Fig. 13.14), 346–7 (Fig. 13.15), 382, 384 Dramatic theme of film, 16281 (playing the overview), 452 Dream West, 43 Dreith, Dennis (composer/union activist), 104, 106, 737 Drop-frame format, 208, 769 (Appendix D) Drum machines, 319 Dubbing, 550–63 changing/losing cues, 234, 550, 559 composer on dubbing stage, 550–1, 561 dialogue music levels, 561, 564 (for study) director in, 512, 558, 559 Dolby SR, 556 dubbing formats, 554 dubbing logs, 551 dubbing schedules, 561–3 dubbing stage and the participants, 551 dubbing stage log for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Horrors, 553 (Fig. 19.1) dubbing stage sound quality, 554 dubbing stage protocol, 559 executive producer in, 16 film editor’s role in, 559–61

Index

799

first adjustments during the mix, 554–7 5.1 surround sound, 555 Fletcher-Munson curve, 547 for television, 562, 658 FTP (file transfer protocol), 552 losing a score, 561–3 mixers, 555 monitoring levels, 556 music editing, 551, 557 music levels, 554, 557 predubbing, 554 preparing the music for, 551 previews, 563 print master process, 555 schedules, 563 sound effects, 555, 557 television, 658 with dialogue, 561 Dudley, Anne, 5, 57, 173, 188, 215, 224, 228, 259, 267, 284, 315, 324, 329, 332, 334 (Fig. 13.8), 452, 738 American History X, Flashback/Derek Arrested, 230 (Fig. 10.4) American History X, Main Title, 271 (Fig. 10.21) American History X, Main Title, 275 (Fig. 10.25) American History X, Main Title, 334 (Fig. 13.8) Dun, Tan, 41, 267, 305, 428, 448, 469 E Early Frost, 560 East of Eden, 401 and 426 (harmony for characterization), 731 Edelman, Randy, 72, 158, 286, 289, 293, 356, 479, 739 Editor, film, 15, 29 adds music, 29 editing to music, 29 role in dubbing, 559–61 Editor, music. See Music editor. Edward Scissorhands, 64, 120, 139, 144–7 (Fig. 6.8), 283, 429 Edwards, Blake (writer/director/producer), 75 use of Bolero, 38, 39 Egilsson, Arni (double bassist), 529 Elias, Jonathan (orchestrator), 293 Electronic music and scoring, 4–, 119 (The Player, American Beauty), 514–5, 535–7, 568–86 acoustic recreations, 568–9 The Andromeda Strain, 569 Blair Witch II, 578 blending electronic and acoustic instruments, 569–75 Clan of the Cave Bear, 578, 580–3 (Fig. 20.3) Crash, 571 (Fig. 20.1) creating sounds, 576–8

Index

800

Digital Performer, 654 electronic contemporary music, 573 equipment, 583–4, 647, 649 EWI (electronic wind instrument), 469 finding sounds, 576, 646 K-PAX, 577 manipulating acoustic sounds, 569 mockups, 19, 173–84, 532, 535–7, 569 (Gladiator) Percussion section and electronics, 428–9, 433 (ethnic), 569 preprogramming electronic sequences, 578 prerecording electronic tracks, 515, 536, 578 Pro Tools, 31, 61, 515, 526, 528, 532, 654 Reactor (software), 625 Reason (software), 625 recording electronic music, 578–80, 583–4 recording self-performed performances, 578 recording with an electronic ensemble, 578 samples, 468, 569, 572–3, 577–8 scoring with electronics, 576–8 Snow Falling on Cedars, 573 Spy Game, 575 sweetening with, 580 Synclavier, 8, 152, 647 technical assistance, 585 Thomas Newman’s scores, 575 Westworld, 570 Witness, 301, 536, 579 Elephant Man, 119, 162, 165 (Fig. 6.15), 246, 249, 270, 309 Elfman, Danny, 19, 64, 75, 115, 120, 265, 285, 307, 324, 333, 355, 419, 429, 448, 519, 571, 651 Batman, Shootout, 274 (Fig. 10.23) Edward Scissorhands, Main Title, 144–7 (Fig. 6.8) Elhai, Robert (orchestrator), 241 Emperor’s Club, The, 589 Enter the Dragon, 50 Entrapment, 79, 152, 179, 270 Ephron, Nora (director/writer/producer), 19 Erman, John (director/producer), 16–9, 25, 29, 559, 737 Ethnic/geographic, 143, 146–54 African, 132 and 170 (Baaba Maal), 142 (North African), 164, 570 (Speed 2) authenticity, 150–4 avoiding, 154 Balinese gamelan orchestra, 468 Black Hawk Down, 171 Braveheart, 169–70 The Cell, 162–4, 167 (Fig. 16.16), 170 Celtic, 455 Chinese, 468 (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) Chocolat, 171, 356

Index

801

degree of, 148 duduk, 152 function of, 146 Gasparyan, Djivan (duduk player), 152 The Godfather, 356 The Insider, 170 Japanese, 468 (Karate Kid II), 476 Korean instruments, 152, 318 Mexican, 455 (Under the Volcano) Michael Collins, 356 Paulie, 171 panpipes, 470 The Peacemaker, 170 recording with ethnic musicians, 152 Reinhardt, Django, 171 Remo Williams, 317 research, 150–2 sanayi, 152 Snow Falling on Cedars, 171, 357 source music, 146 Three Kings, 171 Titanic, 357 Ethnic percussion, 433 E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, 215, 371, 372, 386 (Fig. 14.14), 468, 476 (Fig. 16.9) EWI (electronic wind instrument), 469 eXistenZ, 324, 333, 335 (Fig. 13.9), 335–6 (Fig. 13.10) Executive Action, 479 Executive producer, 15–6, 27 Exorcist, The, 66 F Face/Off 7, 322, 714 Faltermeyer, Harold, 353, 696 Fame, 143, 670, 687 “Fame,” 689 Fearless, 57 Fees, Composing, 109 Orchestration, 112, 501 Ferguson, Allyn, 15, 38, 54, 56, 75, 293, 728, 739 Fernandez, Robert (mixer), 277, 515, 518, 520, 534, 541, 545–6, 550, 555, 739 Ferris Bueller, 288 Fielding, Jerry, 5, 38, 45–6, 244, 249, 428 The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Violaters, 249–50 (Fig. 10.12) The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Violaters, 395 (Fig. 14.22) Film and television deal points, 717–21 Film editor. See Editor, film. Film frame to metronome conversion, 193

Index

802

Filmmakers, 15– (the filmmaking team) first meeting before screening, 39 meeting, 15, who’s in charge, 15–7 Film Musicians Secondary Market Fund, 104–6 Film score function, 16 Film sound, 526 Final mix (see Dubbing) Fine cut, 43–4 Firebird (Stravinsky as role model), 49 First cut, 15, 41 First screening, 41, 310 what to look for, 41 Fisher, Michael (percussionist), 308 Flashdance, 143 Fletcher-Munson, 547 Fly Away Home, 563 Folk music, 152, 158 Footage/timing conversions (Appendix B), 763 Footloose, 695–700 “Footloose,” 695 Form, musical, 73–5, 312–7 48 HRS., 39 (source), 77 Foul Play, 114, 220, 283, 678, 693 Fowler, Bruce (orchestrator), 353, 377 Fox, Charles, 114, 221, 224, 281, 284, 600, 603, 680, 690, 695, 739 Nine to Five, Office Montage, 609–12 (Fig. 21.10) Nine to Five, Violet Steals Body, 230 (Fig. 10.3) Free timing, 188, 189 Fried, Gerald, 5, 151–2, 291, 293, 319, 414, 428, 438, 496, 739 Friedkin, William (director), 66 Freud, 67 Fugitive, The, 60, 174, 355, 399, 407–11 (Fig. 14.30), 411 (Fig. 14.31), 413 (Fig. 14.32), 437 (orchestra as rhythm), 438 (Fig. 15.5) Function of score, 16, 22, 73 Fuqua, Antoine (director), 21, 166, 558 G Gangster Chronicles, The, 154 Genres, 286–98 action, 286 audience expectations, 215, 286 comedy, 253, 288–90 documentaries, 290–2 historical and period, 292–5 horror, 296–8 Geronimo (trailer music), 8 Gerrard, Lisa, 5, 171, 180, 283, 347, 353–4, 419, 448, 573, 626, 632–3, 643, 739

Index

803

Gladiator, The Bodies, 353–4 (Fig. 13.24) w/Zimmer The Insider, Sacrifice, 635–7 (Fig. 21.18) w/Bourke Getting started in film composing, 637 (Introduction) Gettysburg, 287, 293, 357 Ghostbusters, 77, 288, 290, 694 (Song), 695 “Ghostbusters,” 695 Gift, The, 73–237 (Fig. 10.7), 237, 281, 341, 355 GigaStudio, 176 Gimbel, Norman (lyricist), 676, 678, 687, 689, 691, 693, 739 Gladiator, 26, 42, 70, 143, 152, 180, 234, 347, 353–4, (Fig. 13.24), 357, 372, 378–9 (Fig. 14.11), 419 (ethnic, polytonality), 433 (Fig. 15.2), 434 (Fig. 15.3), 528, 539, 548 “Gladiator Waltz, The,” 178, 180–3 (Fig. 7.1), 371, 568 Glory, 138–41 (Fig. 6.7), 226, 281, 293, 302, 419 (pedal point) Glossary (general), 772–9 Glossary (film terms), 81–2 Godfather, The, 119, 154, 341, 346 (Fig. 13.17) Goldenthal, Elliot, 54, 58, 115, 120, 134, 227, 229, 231, 305, 356, 365, 453, 740 Goldsmith, Jerry, 5, 23, 53, 61, 67, 68, 72, 75, 114, 129, 134, 152, 207, 220, 229, 251, 257, 282, 283, 286, 304, 307, 309, 312–4, 317, 323, 342, 345, 347, 356, 359–60, 372, 376, 381, 400, 419, 428, 437, 440, 443, 452, 479, 484, 495, 500, 514, 517, 530, 536, 571, 576, 578, 600, 731, 740 Alien, The Skeleton, 396–7 (Fig. 14.23) Along Came a Spider, Cop Killer, 266 (Fig. 10.18) Along Came a Spider, Cop Killer, 442 (Fig. 15.8) Along Came a Spider, Cop Killer, 444–6 (Fig. 15.9) Along Came a Spider, Megan’s Abduction, 264 (Fig. 10.17) Along Came a Spider, Not My Partner, 363 (Fig. 14.2) Along Came a Spider, Where’s Megan?, 275 (Fig. 10.24) Basic Instinct, Main Title, 365–6 (Fig. 14.4) Hollow Man, R6 Pt.3, The Elevator, 414–6 (Fig. 14.33) Hoosiers, The Coach Says, 605–7 (Fig. 21.8) The Omen, “Ave Satani,” 394 (Fig. 14.20) The Omen, “Ave Satani,” 440–1 (Fig. 15.7) The Omen, The Bed, 480–3 (Fig. 16.11) The Omen, The Demise of Mrs. Baylock, 391–4 (Fig. 14.19) The Omen, I Was There, 347 (Fig. 13.18) Patton, Main Title, 351 (Fig. 13.22) Planet of the Apes, The Search Continues, 345 (Fig. 13.16) The Sum of All Fears, breakdown chart, 509–10 (Fig. 17.2) The Sum of All Fears, Further Aggression, 434–7 (Fig. 15.4) Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The, 119 Goldstein, William, 5, 190, 568, 576, 740 Goldstone, James (director), 49, 62, 66, 290, 550, 739 Goodwin, Gordon (orchestrator), 478, 486–8, 490, 497, 499, 514, 524, 534, 547, 570, 596, 740 Goodwin, Ron, 51 Gore, Michael, 667, 671 (Fame), 687–9, 740 Górecki, Henryk, 57 (Symphony No. 3) Grand Canyon, 285, 413, 427 (harmony as theme), 590–3 (Fig. 21.1 a and b), 593 (Fig. 21.2) Grant, Richard (Auricle developer with Ron Grant), 188, 209, 520, 739

Index

804

Grant, Ron, 200 (Auricle developer with Richard Grant), 209, 739 Grease, 670 Great Escape, The, 49 (Fig. 3.1)–50 Green, John (Johnny; composer/orchestrator, music director/ executive), 667, 668, 673, 739 Green Mile, The, 75, 161, 164 (Fig. 6. 14), 586 (for study) Gregson-Williams, Harry, 50, 67, 178–, 216, 219, 280, 305, 419, 479, 524, 575, 740 Chicken Run, Chicken Run Theme, 52 (Fig. 3.2) with John Powell Grusin, Dave, 154–5, 158, 357, 604, 642 Tootsie, Main Title, 626–9 (Fig. 21.15) Tootsie, M-33, 629 (Fig. 21.16) H Hall, Ken (music editor), 207 Hamlisch, Marvin, 26, 60, 66, 69, 76, 217, 282, 301, 315, 317, 456, 678, 686, 696, 730, 741 Hammer, Jan, 573 Hanson, Howard, 67 Happy Ending, The, 686, 689 Hard out, 77 Harlin, Renny (director/producer), 323 Harmony, 359–426 as theme, 412–3, 427 (for study) basso continuo, 399 chords built on thirds, 360 chromatic, 359–63 clusters, 377, 381 diatonic, 359–63 East of Eden, 401 ethnic scales, 371, 419 (for study) for characterization, 400, 407, 426 (for study) from linear writing, 381, 384 Grand Canyon, 413 Lydian mode, 371, 373 modal, 364, 371, 419 and 420 (for study) ostinatos, 340, 375 (The Omen), 385, 400 (Hollow Man, Beautiful Mind), 420 (for study) pandiatonism, 371, 419 (for study) pedal point, 385, 419 (for study) polytonality, 371, 419 (for study) quartal harmony, 374 Snow Falling on Cedars, 413 tension, 414, 417 twelve-tone row, 161, 388 (Figs. 14.16 and 14.17) twelve-tone and serial techniques, 161, 374–5, 389–90 (Pelham, Fig. 14.18), 419 (for study) Harrison, Jim (music editor), 86–96 (spotting notes, etc.), 551 (dubbing stage log) Harry and Tonto, 7 Harry Potter and the Socerer’s Stone, xxi, 219, 259, 260–3 (Fig. 10.16), 280 music summary, 88–92 (Fig. 4.2) spotting notes, 86–7 (Fig. 4.1) timing notes, 92–4 (Fig. 4.3)

Index

805

Hassell, Jon, 651 “Haunted,” 657 “Hawaii Five-0,” 29 Hayes, Isaac (composer/singer), 25, 679 Hayes, Jack (orchestrator), 276, 457, 483, 486, 492, 741 Health and Welfare (A. F. of M.), 106 Health considerations, 503–5 Heartbreakers, 60 Hearshen, Ira (orchestrator), 618, 620 Heart of a Champion, 228 Heat, 231–2, 625, 632 Heaven Can Wait, 356 Henry V, 292 Herek, Stephen (director), 637 Herrmann, Bernard, 22, 50, 60, 217, 355 Hicks, Scott (director/writer), 248, 413 Higgins, Colin (director/writer/producer), 224 High Anxiety, 266 Highlighting, 266, 284 High Noon, 730 Hill, George Roy (director/producer), 66 Hill, Jim (electronics producer), 175, 520, 585 Hindenburg, The, 359 Hirsch, Paul (film editor), 695 Historical and period dramas, 143, 292–5, 357 Hit records, 353, 355 Hitchcock, Alfred (director), 21, 483 Hitting the action, 77, 204, 255–65, 283 the director’s wishes, 259 Hitting cues, 188, 197, 199–202 Holst, Gustav, 371 (The Planets) Hollow Man, 220, 251, 281, 400, 414–6 (Fig. 14.33), 419 (harmonic ostinatos) Hoosiers, 129, 134, 600, 605–7 (Fig. 21.8) Horner, James, 25, 60, 63, 77, 114, 138, 169–71, 225, 228, 249, 259, 264, 281, 293, 302, 328, 341, 344–7, 349, 355, 356, 364, 386, 399, 419, 452, 477–8, 577, 684, 686, 693, 696, 741 Brainstorm, 5M3, 404–5 (Fig. 14.28) Brainstorm, 7M3, 273–4 (Fig. 10.22) Brainstorm, 10M3, 331 (Fig. 13.6) Brainstorm, 12M3, 453 (Fig. 16.1) Braveheart, Main Title, 349 (Fig. 13.20) Braveheart, Main Title, 349 (Fig. 13.21) Braveheart, Main Title, 370 (Fig. 14.7) Braveheart, Wallace Courts Murron, 368–70 (Fig. 14.6) Glory, Main Title, 138–41 (Fig. 6.7) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, Khan, 276 (Fig. 10.26) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Main Title, 457 (Fig. 16.4) Horner, Michael (agent/business affairs executive), 709, 713, 715, 717, 741 Horror films, 296–8

Index

806

type casting, 298 House on Garibaldi Street, The, 148, 492 Howard, James Newton, xxii, 20, 23–5, 60, 77, 114, 119, 148, 158, 171, 174, 178–, 217, 221, 240, 248, 259, 281, 284, 286, 305, 310, 324, 326, 328, 355, 356, 399, 412, 419, 426, 437, 456, 469, 520, 535, 537, 571, 573, 587, 590, 640, 642, 741 The Fugitive, Kimble Dyes His Hair, 413 (Fig. 14.32) The Fugitive, Kimble in the River, 411 (Fig. 14.31) The Fugitive, The Sewer, 438 (Fig. 15.5) The Fugitive, Stairway Chase, 407–11 (Fig. 14.30) Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon, 593 (Fig. 21.2) Grand Canyon, Main Title, 590–3 (Fig. 21.1 a and b) The Man in the Moon, Dani Runs out the Back Door, 162 (Fig. 6.13), 584 Signs, Death of Houdini, 327 (Fig. 13.4) Signs, In the Cornfield, 328–30 (Fig. 13.5) Signs, Main Title, 470 (Fig. 16.7) The Sixth Sense, Kyra’s Ghost, 267 (Fig. 10.19) The Sixth Sense, Searching Kyra’s House, 268 (Fig. 10.20) Snow Falling on Cedars, Hatsue and Ishamel Kiss, 417 (Fig. 14.34) Snow Falling on Cedars, Running Along the Beach, 573–4 (Fig. 20.2) “How Do You Keep the Music Playing,” 686 How to Use This Book, 10– Hughes, John (writer/director), 39, 287, 300 Hurricane, The, 114, 119, 129–32 (Fig. 6.4), 173, 419 (pedal point), 452, 593, 599, 608–9 (Fig. 21.9), 709 Huston, John (director/writer/producer/actor), 16, 455 I i am sam, 62 “If I Didn’t Have You,” 681–4 Inanimate object as central character, 133 In Cold Blood, 314 Insider, The, 170, 178, 281, 447(for study), 573, 625, 632–3, 642 (for study) Inside the Third Reich, 359, 363 (Fig. 14.3) Interviewees and authors, The, 734–53 Interview with a Vampire, 114 Into the Night, 638 Irish music, 148, 357, 170 and 317 (Celtic) Isaacson, Michael (composer/entrepreneur), 728–9, 741 ISDN lines, xxiii, 542 Isenberg, Gerald (producer), 15, 741 Isham, Mark, 68, 284, 448, 586, 642 Italian Symphony (Mendelssohn), 54, 352 “It Goes Like It Goes,” 686, 691 I Want to Live!, 160 I Will Fight No More Forever, 152, 413 J “JAG,” 645, 651

Index

807

James Bond, 287 Japanese music, 143, 147–8, 170, 357 Jarre, Maurice, 21, 50, 323, 536, 579, 588, 742 Jaws, 298, 324 (Fig. 13.1) Jazz and blues, 120, 129, 142 (bebop), 160 Jennings, Will (lyricist), 675, 681, 684, 687, 691–3, 695, 741 Jewison, Norman (director/producer), 217, 685, 693, 709 “Johnny B. Goode,” 540 Johnny Dangerously, 540 Jones, Quincy (composer/producer/record producer), 314 Joplin, Scott, 120 Jurassic Park III, 114 K Kahn, Michael (film editor), 64 Kaiser, Andrew (orchestrator), 600 Kane, JoAnn (JoAnn Kane Music Service) The Sum of All Fears breakdown chart, 509–10 Karate Kid, 143 Karate Kid II 148, 470 Karlin, Fred (composer/educator), 41, 133, 143, 347, 359, 373, 569, 586, 709–51 Inside the Third Reich, The New Building, 363 (Fig. 14.3) Leadbelly, Leadbelly Escapes (Part 3), 382–4 (Fig. 14.13) Up the Down Staircase, Halls/Classroom, 476 (Fig. 16.10) Up the Down Staircase, Theme with Bass, 351 (Fig. 13.23) Karpman, Laura, 108, 322, 645, 650, 654, 658, 662, 709, 742 “Odyssey 5,” Episode #103 (2002), Enter Bad Guys, 654–8 (Fig. 22.3) Taken, Artemis, 660–2 (Fig. 22.4) Kasdan, Lawrence (director/writer/producer), 75 Katzenberg, Jeffrey (producer/executive), 218, 219 Kaufman, Philip (director/writer), 23 Kaye, Tony (director), 173 Keene, Chris (conductor), 192 Keeping healthy, 504–11 Kell, Daryl (music editor), 551 Kelly, Gene (dancer/actor/choreographer), 668 Kent State, 290 Ketia, Salif (songwriter), 293 Keyboard magazine, 178 Kid, Michael (choreographer), 667 King, B.B. (blues musician/singer), 638 Kline, Rick (mixer), 270, 277, 550, 555, 559, 561, 742 K–19: The Widow Maker, 541 Knudson, Carroll (music editor/click book developer), Knudson click book, 193, 209 Kopple, Rudy (journalist/photographer), 64, 114, 310 K-PAX, 41, 46, 239, 241–3 (Fig. 10.9), 283, 371, 429–, 559, 587 (for study), 643 (for study) Kraft, Robert (music executive), 3, 4, 710, 725, 741

Index

808

Krough, John (journallist), 178 Kubrick, Stanley (director/writer/producer), 66 Kull, John (orchestrator), 129, 607 L Ladybird Johnson’s Visit to Washington, D.C., 271 “La Femme Nikita,” 8 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, 115, 570 Last Castle, The, 23 La Traviata, 56 “Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” 648 (Fig. 22.1) Lawrence of Arabia, 50 Leadbelly, 43, 373, 382–4 (Fig. 14.13) LeBow, Doug (composer/music preparation), 741 Lee, Ang (director/producer/writer), 267 Legrand, Michel, 688, 690, 695, 703–5 LeMel, Gary (music executive), 33, 64–6, 693, 695, 723, 725, 741 Less is more, 741–249, 281 “Let’s Hear It For the Boy,” 697–700 Levant, Oscar (actor), 670 Levene, Gus (orchestrator), 483 Levin, Erma (music editor), 83, 741 Levinson, Barry (director/writer/producer), 558 Licensing, 724–5 Liddle, Rebecca R. (orchestrator), 294 Lionheart, 115 Lion in Winter, The, 292 Little Romance, A, 54, 300 Logan’s Run, 356 Lojewski, Harry (music executive), 19, 713, 743 Long cues, 78 Lord of the Rings, The: The Fellowship of the Rings, xxi, 132, 136–8 (Fig. 6.6), 233, 363, 418 (modal) Losing a score, 561–3 Love at First Bite, 288 Low, David (music contractor), 101 Lucas, George (director/writer/producer), 173, 267, 563 Luhrmann, Baz (director/writer/producer), 673 Lully, Jean-Baptiste, 293 Lurie, Rod (director/writer/producer), 23, 173 Lyrics (see Songs, 443–456) fees, 110 M MacDougall, Don (mixer), 275, 555, 561, 563, 568, 743 Mad Max beyond Thunderdome, 323, 469 Magnificent Seven, The, 21, 114, 156, 300, 356, 385, 406 (Fig. 14.29), 437 (orchestra as rhythm) Mahler, Gustav, 54, 265 Main Title music, 219–24

Index

809

Agnes of God, 221, 281 The American President, 281 Foul Play, 220 Hollow Man, 220 K-PAX, 221 The Player, 219 The Silence of the Lambs, 221–4 (Fig. 10.1), 280–1 The Sixth Sense, 219 Malick, Terrence (director/writer/producer), 46, 570 Mancina, Mark, 8, 21, 50, 68, 115, 165, 175, 180, 306, 317, 323, 419, 430, 438, 551, 557, 564, 743 Mancini, Henry, 53, 60, 77, 215, 255, 281, 292, 303, 322, 374, 386, 470, 477, 484, 673, 692, 694, 743 The Man Who Loved Women, The Analyst Resigns (Fig. 14.15) That’s Life!, Remember, 400 (Fig. 14.26) Victor/Victoria, Cat and Mouse, 298 (Fig. 11.3) Victor/Victoria, You Are Impotent, 297 (Fig. 11.2) Mancuso, Becky (Spargo) (music supervisor), 700 Mandel, Johnny, 5, 120, 128, 155, 160, 290, 678, 743 Being There, Goodbye Louise, 124 (Fig. 6.2) The Verdict, 8M1, 423 (Fig. 14.37) Man for All Seasons, A, 292, 400 “Man from U.N.C.L.E., The,” 53 Man in the Iron Mask, The, 292 Man in the Moon, The, 23, 119, 158, 162 (Fig. 6.13), 589, 642 (for study) Man Who Loved Women, The, 372, 387 (Fig. 14.15) Man with the Golden Arm, The, 160 Mankiewicz, Joseph (director/writer), 23 Mann, Michael (director/writer/producer), 178, 573, 625, 632–3 Marks, Gene (music editor), 83, 204, 668, 743 Marshall, Garry (director/writer/producer/actor), 138 Martinelli, John (film editor), 29, 559–61, 743 Cliff Martinez, 587 Marvin, Richard, 651, 658 Mask of Zorro, The, 356, 419 (ethnic) Master Musicians of Jajouka, The, 142, 164, 170 Matrix, The, 237, 322, 336–8–341 (Fig. 13.12), 342 (Fig. 13.13), 371–2, 380 (Fig. 14.12), 419 May, Tim (guitarist), 539 Mazursky, Paul (director/writer/producer), 6 McCarthy, Dennis, 9 McGehee, Scott (director/writer/producer), 624 McIntosh, Ladd (orchestrator), 180 McKenzie, Mark (composer/orchestrator), 3, 19, 209, 266, 434, 444, 486, 488, 490, 492, 512, 497, 530, 535, 569, 743 McRitchie, Greig (orchestrator), 138 Meet Joe Black, 60 Mellé, Gil, 568, 570 Melnick, Daniel (producer), Melody, 322–56

Index

810

adapting a theme, 352 for specific character, 129 motifs, 129, 319–41, 355 multiple motifs, 336–41 two independent lines, 347 two part counterpoint, 347 two-voice texture, 345–7, 355 unaccompanied, 341, 344, 356 Melvoin, Michael (composer/pianist), 318, 385, 592, 594, 743 Mendelssohn, Felix, 54 (Italian Symphony), 54, 352 Mendes, Sam (director), 23, 58, 148 Mencken, Alan, 674 Mercer, Johnny (lyricist), 322 Message in a Bottle, 358 Metronome to click track conversions, 194 Metronome to film frame conversion, 193 Meyerson, Alan (mixer), 515, 518, 527, 532, 541, 546, 743 “Miami Vice,” 573 Michael Collins, 147, 227, 291, 365 Michaels, Richard (director), 21, 49, 228, 561, 730, 743 MIDI, and audio mockups, 485 composing with, 576 orchestration, 178 save your music, 178 sketches, 484, 490–2 Midnight Express, 40, 60, 568, 586 (for study) Milagro Beanfield War, The, 158 Miller, George (director/writer/producer), 322 Milhaud, Darius, 155 Minimalism, 161 Minority Report, 324, 326 (Fig. 13.3), 355, 428, 430–2 (Fig. 15.1), 437 (orchestra as rhythm), 449 (for study), 563 “Mission Impossible,” 53, 115 Mission Impossible, 419 (pedal point) Mixer, the, 518 Mixes, 174 dubbing: the final mix, 550–63 for CD, 548 for television, 658 mixing formats for dubbing, 544–6 postmixes and sound processing, 544 samples in final mix, 546 to CD-ROM, 516 under dialogue, 546 using dedicated processors, 515 Mockups, 19, 173–84 how polished?, 180

Index

811

on scoring stage, 530–2, 535–7 on videocassettes, 180 replicating an orchestra, 176 soloists, 178 Moll Flanders, 318 Monkey Trouble, 8 Monsignor, 526 Monster’s Ball, 570 Monsters, Inc., 681 “Moonlighting,” 495 “Moon River,” 322 Moore, Tom (director/writer/producer), 79 Moriarty, Y.S. (orchestrator), 377 Morissette, Alanis (singer/songwriter), 293 Moroder, Giorgio, 60, 282, 301, 568, 586 Moross, Jerome, 157, 731 Morricone, Ennio, 119 Morris, John, 5, 39, 53, 120, 163, 164, 246, 249, 270, 290, 309, 539, 743 Elephant Man, Main Title, 165 (Fig. 6.1) Young Frankenstein, Transylvania Lullaby, 56 (Fig. 3.3) Morton, Arthur (orchestrator), 347, 391, 394, 396, 440, 480, 484, 605 Motifs, 129, 314, 323–41, 355 multiple motifs, 336–41 Motion Picture Health and Welfare, 104 Moviola film editing machine, 668 Moulin Rouge!, 674 Mulligan, Robert (director), 23, 133 Murder at 1600, 324, 355 “Murder She Wrote,” 355 Murphy, Shawn (mixer), 537 Music budgets, 723 Music excerpts (listing), 794–9 Musicals and prerecording, 667–73 the classic musicals, 673 Moulin Rouge!, 674 prerecording (prescoring), 667–70 American in Paris, An, 668 cue click, 668 Grease, 670 Fame, 670 West Side Story, 667–8 Zorba the Greek, 667–8 postscoring (postrecording), 667, 670–3 taps, 670 That’s Lilfe!, 670–3 They Shoot Horses Don’t They?, 673 set recording, 667–8 The Vagabond King, 668

Index

812

taps, 670 Musical styles, 154–70 Music contractor, De Crescent, Sandy, 96 checklist, 96–509 Music editing companies, 204 Music editor, 29–33 Black Hawk Down, 33 (Bob Badami), 129 changes, 183 checklist, 509–10 click tracks, 31 composer’s checklist, 509, 511 creative role of, 31 (Zimmer), i am sam (Curt Sobel), 62 spotting notes of, 72, 79, 83, 86–96 streamer preparation (traditional), 189 technology, 32, 189 (traditional) working with composer, 31–3, 183, 204 Music executive, 16, 33–6 expectations of the composer, 33 responsibilities, 34 soundtrack album, 34 Music from the Movies, 62, 64, 309 Music preparation (music librarian, copyist), 309–509 checklist, 510–1 proofreading, 509 The Sum of All Fears breakdown chart, 509–10 (Fig. 17.2) Music supervisor, 16, 33–6, 710–3 responsibilities, 34 relationship with composer and director, 36 Music, when to use (in spotting), 73–9 My Bodyguard, 155 “My Heart Will Go On,” 684, 691–3 N Naked Lunch, 5–, 142, 245, 415, 417, 424–5 (Fig. 14.38), 640 Naknishi, Hasheo (synthesist), 177 Narc, 587 (for study) Nashel, Peter, 5, 540, 624–5, 642, 710, 743 The Deep End, Lake Tahoe and The Deep End Theme, 630–2 (Fig. 21.17) Nelly, 58 (rap) Nelson, Jessie (director/writer/producer), 38 Neufeld, John (orchestrator/musician), 236, 326, 338, 348, 429 Never Cry Wolf 568, 586 (for study) Newborn, Ira, 59, 289, 300, 638, 743 Newman, David, 292 The Affair of the Necklace, Logo/Opening, 294–6 (Fig. 11.1) Newman, Randy, 304, 558, 564, 676, 683–4, 696, 745

Index

813

Newman, Thomas, 24, 58, 60, 63, 76, 120, 148, 161, 180, 215, 217, 221, 224, 239–41, 244, 249, 280, 283, 292, 303, 308, 359, 371, 374–, 419, 430, 469, 478, 575, 586, 594, 600, 641, 651, 745 American Beauty, Paper Bag, 245–6 (Fig. 10.10) Desperately Seeking Susan, Port Authority, 605 (Fig. 21.7) The Green Mile, Drive to Lawyer, 164 (Fig. 6.14) Pay It Forward, Aftermath, 247 (Fig. 10.11) Pay It Forward, Class Presentation, 598 (Fig. 21.5) Road to Perdition, Drive to Chicago (Fig. 14.1), 360–1 Road to Perdition, Main Title, 150 (Fig. 6.9) Nightmare on Elm Street, 296 night, Mother, 80, 356 Nine to Five, 224, 230 (Fig. 10.30), 281, 600, 604, 609–12 (Fig. 21.10) Nitsche, Jack, 682 “Nobody Does It Better,” 684–6 Non-drop-frame format, 208 North, Alex, 18, 68, 114, 160, 271, 292, 302 (Prizzi’s Honor source), 304, 318, 338, 342, 355, 381, 455, 731, 745 Dragonslayer, Three Cells Combined, 343–4 (Fig. 13.15) Dragonslayer, Three Cells from Dragonslayer, 343 (Fig. 13.14) Under the Volcano, Death of Peasant, 454 (Fig. 16.2, sketch) North and South, 114 North by Northwest, 50, 355 “No Wonder,” 702 “NYPD Blue,” 653 O October Sky, “Odyssey 653 646, 654 (Fig. 22.3), 658 Officer and a Gentleman, An, 681, 695 Omen, The, 114, 345, 347 (Fig. 13.18), 355, 356, 371, 375, 380, 391–4 (Fig. 14.19), 394 (Fig. 14.20), 419 (twelve-tone), 439, 440–1 (Fig. 15.7), 443, 478, 480–3 On the Track 192 Operatic approach, 232, 234–70, 322 Orchestration, 452–501 audio mockups, 485 bar numbers, phrasings, bowings, 499 business aspects of orchestration, 501 changes, 498–9 characterizing the film’s dramatic theme, 119, 123, 138, 452 chorus, 496 (size) col, 497 (includes Fig. 16.12) color as concept, 133 (Stalking Moon) color and emotion, 478 come sopras, 496–7 (Fig. 16.12) the composer/orchestrator relationship, 486–8 contemporary rhythm section, writing for, 589–95, 596 fees, 501 for the central character, 162

Index

814

function of orchestrator, 488 fresh sounds and interesting combinations, 469, 477–8 larger orchestra, 478 (Armageddon), 492 (Elfman) marking the scores, 499 orchestral effects, 478 orchestrating from MIDI sketches, 488–92 orchestration schedules, 498 paper size, 500 pen/pencil or computer, 499–501 reduce scores to sketches, 486 same theme, different setting, 317 scores for study, 501 short cuts (come sopras and col indications), sketches, 173–6, 304, 483–4 (MIDI sketches), 483–4, 487 (Tiomkin) smaller string sections, 495 small orchestra budgets, 478 solo colors, 501 (for study) spare orchestration, 501 (for study) specific colors for characters, 120–3 (“Rockford Files”), 129 (Patton) string section sizes, 492–5 suggesting locale with color, 119, 146, 148, 455 symphonic orchestration, 455, 468, 501 (for study) television, 480 to orchestrate or not to orchestrate?, 478, 483 transposed or concert-pitch scores?, 484–6 true to composer’s style, 486 typical 85-piece recording orchestra, 492–5 typical orchestra set-ups, 492 using computer notation, 501 using strings, 502 (for study) using synths and orchestra together, 492 Orchestrators and copyists—composer’s checklist, 510–1 Orff, Carl, 60 Organizing the score, 312–4 Ostinatos, 340, 375 (The Omen), 438, 440, 442 Other Side of the Mountain, The, 142 Outlaw Josey Wales, The, 244, 249–50 (Fig. 10.12), 396 (Fig. 14.22), 428 Out of Africa, 85, 146, 356 P Package deals, 96–7, 109, 720 Pakula, Alan (director/producer/writer), 23, 75 Parker, Alan (director/writer/producer), 670 Parker, Charlie (jazz saxophonist), 142 Parker, Ray, Jr. (songwriter), 694 Parks, Gordon (director/composer), 25, 745 Pasatieri, Thomas (orchestrator), 150, 247, 360, 597 Patriot, The, 283, 292, 322, 332, 338 (Fig. 13.11), 371, 419

Index

815

Patton, 75, 129, 347, 351 (Fig. 13.22) Paulie, 171 Payback, 160, 603, 613–7 (Fig. 21.11), 643 (for study) Pay It Forward, 161, 239–41, 247 (Fig. 10.11), 281, 371, 429, 575, 586 (for study), 594, 598– (Fig. 21.5) Peacemaker, The, 170 Pearl Harbor, 555 Penderecki, Krzysztof, 248 Penguin Cafe Orchestra, 63 (i am sam) Pension Plan (A. F. of M.), 105 Percussion section and electronics, 428–9, 433 (ethnic), 569 Performance royalties, ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, 110, 719, 721–3 Pereira, Heitor (musician), 132 Period music, 292–7, 357 “Peter Gunn,” 53, 175 Peter the Great, 79, 154 (Fig. 6.10), 317, 413 Petroushka, 372 (Fig. 14.9 b) Phrasing the drama, 254 Pink Panther, The, 60, 75, 254 Pitchford, Dean (lyricist/writer), 670, 675, 676, 687–9, 691, 693, 695–700, 697, 728, 745 Plagiarism and role models, 58 Planet of the Apes (2001), 19, 428, 447 (for study), 518 Planet of the Apes (1968), 341, 345 (Fig. 13.16) Planning orchestra sessions, 516–8 Platoon, 67 Playback recording, 44 Player, The, 119, 180, 241, 244, 429, 468, 575 Playing against the picture, 39 (Midnight Express), 56 (Fearless), 314 (Revolution) Playing the drama, 215–83 audience expectations, 286 avoiding emotion, 248 de-emphasizing a scene, 247 don’t tip the story, 216, 278 getting inside the character’s feelings, 228, 281 highlighting, 266, 284 hitting the action, 255–65 how intensely to play the drama, 232, 281 less is more, 281–49 Main Title music, 219–24, 281 phrasing the drama, 254, 283 playing the overview, 225, 281 playing the situation, 231–2 playing through the drama, 250, 283 playing what the scene is really about, 225, 281, 314 red herrings, 266, 284 scoring like a ballet, 267, 270, 283 silence, 249–51, 283 tone, 216–9, 280, 636

Index

816

underscoring dialogue, 270–1, 275, 277–9, 285 understating the drama, 285–47, 281 who’s point of view to play?, 224, 281 Playing the overview, 132, 138 Playing through the drama, 250 Point of view, whose to play, 224, 281 Pollack, Sydney (director/producer/actor), 85, 147, 673, 691 Pope, Conrad (orchestrator), 260 Portman, Rachel, 41, 115, 120, 158, 171, 236, 238, 282, 314, 322, 342, 356, 371, 419 Chocolat, The Mayan Bowl Breaks, 239 (Fig. 10.8) Chocolat, Other Possibilities, 124–9 (Fig. 6.3) Chocolat, Vianne Paints Shop, 158–61 (Fig. 6.12) Post, Mike, 5, 120–3, 228, 385, 453, 590, 592, 594, 645, 646, 653, 658, 709, 729, 745 “Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” Theme (in 2001), 648 (Fig. 22.1) “The Rockford Files,” Theme, 648–123 (Fig. 6.1) Poastman Always Rings Twice, The, 413–4, 419–22 (Fig. 14.35), 422 (Fig. 14.36) Postscoring (postrecording), 38 Poulenc, Francis, 155 Powell, Eddie (orchestrator), 483 Powell, John, 5, 7, 39, 50, 62, 178–, 216, 219, 267, 280, 287, 304, 322, 419, 520, 539, 642, 713, 745 Chicken Run, Chicken Run Theme, 52 (Fig. 3.2) with Gregson-Williams Power of association, 317 “Practice, The,” 651 Prerecording, 515, 667–70 acoustic tracks and soloists, 515 American in Paris, An, 668 the cue click, 668 development of methods, 669 electronic and/or other tracks, 174, 515 Fame, 670 Grease, 670 intonation problems, 668 in musicals, 667–73 recent practices, 39 (Young Frankenstein), 668 –70(Grease), songs, 39 Previews, 65, 239, 563 Price, Jonathan (synthesist), 176, 536, 746 Princess Diaries, The, 132, 158 Prizzi’s Honor, 114, 300 Producer, the, 27– and the director, 15 communicating with, 29–, 56 creative producers, 27 executive producers, 16, 27 working with in television, 27 Producing the music, 518–20 Pro Tools, 31, 61, 515, 526, 528, 532, 654 Psycho, 217

Index

817

Puccini, Giacomo, 143 Pulse, 318–9 variable pulse, 319 Punches and streamers, 190, 525, 526 “Putting on the Ritz,” 539 R Rabin, Trevor, 5, 25, 28, 162, 179, 183, 266, 318, 323, 539, 547, 576, 595, 635, 637, 638, 643, 746 Rock Star, Emily’s Leaving, 596 (Fig. 21.4) Raiders of the Lost Ark, 216, 371 Raimi, Sam (director/writer/producer), 62, 73 Raksin, David, 19 Rap, 58 (Nelly), 66 Ratner, Brett (director), 50, 604 Rat Race, 178, 266 Ravel, Maurice, 39 (Bolero in 10), 39, 540 (Habanera), 624 “Ready to Take a Chance Again,” 678, 693 Rock Star, 595, 635, 637 Recording, scoring/the scoring stage, 503, 514–46 bass register, 527 booking the musicians, 108 changes and the budget, 535 changes on the scoring stage, 530, 532–5 with click, 524 composer’s booth representative, 520 composer’s checklist, 509, 511 communication with conductor, 520 communication with mixer, 518, 527, 530, 537 conduct or produce the session?, 520 conducting, 520, 523–6, 529–30 conducting aids, 468, 520, 523–6, 529 (cue mixes) digital vs. acoustic formats, 527 director, working with, 533 electronics, 515, 528, 536 film sound vs. record sound, 526 Fletcher-Munson curve, 547 format, 526 headset mixes (cue mixes), 524, 528 ISDN sessions, 541 keyboards, 531 layering, 539 lower register, 526 mixer (engineer), 518, 537 mixing formats for dubbing, 544–6 mixing live and synthesized sounds, 536 mockups, 532, 535–7 overdubbing, 539 planning orchestra sessions, 516–8

Index

818

playback recording, 44, 514 (defined) playbacks, 538 postmixes, 515, 544 postscoring taps, 540 preparing the scores, 520, 523 preparing to record, 510 prerecording (prescoring), 515 (defined) prerecording acoustic tracks and soloists, 515 prerecording electronic tracks, 515, 536 prerecording on-screen performance, 539 preventing click leakage, 528 producing the music, 518–20 Pro Tools, 515, 526, 528, 532 recording, 535–7 recording away from home, 541 recording electronic music, 535 recording with prerecorded electronics, 524 rehearsal protocol, 529–30 scoring stage, 514 (defined) selecting a conductor, 520 set recording, 514 (defined) setups, 519 soloists, 518, 636–40 stacking, 539 streamers and punches, 525 timing corrections while recording, 541 time pressures, 539–42 time to record, 515 under dialogue, 538, 546 warning clicks, 525 with electronics, 515, 536 (on scoring stage) Recording format, 526 Red herrings, 266, 284 Reinhardt, Django (jazz guitarist), 171 Reitman, Ivan (producer/director), 75 Reitz, John (rerecording mixer), 557, 561, 745 Remo Williams, 114, 152, 317 Report from Ground Zero, 291 Research, 150–4, 318 Return of the Jedi, 277–80 (Fig. 10.27), 283, 356 Revell, Graeme, 5, 32, 65, 115, 174, 260, 298, 323, 443, 570, 573, 577, 632, 746 Revolution, 229, 315, 326 Reynolds, Kevin (director/writer), 84, 234 Rhythm. See Using rhythm. Rhythm section, 160, 174 Richards, John (mixer), 526, 745 Right Stuff The, 23 Ritard timings, 201 (Fig. 8.9; Fig. 8.10), 202 (Fig. 8.11)

Index

819

Rite of Spring, The, 371, 372 (Fig. 14.9 a) Ritt, Martin (director/producer), 692 RMA (Recording Musicians Association), 104 Road to Perdition, 24, 58, 148, 150 (Fig. 6.9), 217, 224, 280, 292, 359, 360–2 (Fig. 14.1), 575, 596 Robert Kennedy and His Times, 142 Robbins, Jerome (Jerry; choreographer), 668 Robinson, Phil Alden (director/writer/producer), 287 Robot Monster, 570 Rock and roll, 570, 162 “Rockford Files, The,” 119–23 (Fig. 6.1) Rocky, 119 Rock Star, 161, 317, 596 (Fig. 21.4), 635, 637, 643 (for study) Rodeo, 374 Role models, 49–58 Adagio, Mahler’s 3rd Symphony, 54 African, 132 and 170 (Baaba Maal), 142 (North African), 164 Also spracht Zarathustra, 289 Americana, 157 American Beauty, 49 Arnold, Malcolm, 51 Bach, Johanne Sebastian, 155 Barry, John, 53, 60 bebop, 142 Beiderbecke, Bix, 293 Berlioz, Hector, 54 Bernstein, Elmer, 50 blues, 120, 129, 160 The Bridge on the River Kwai, 50 Bulgarian music, 205 Carmina burana, 60 carnival music, 119, 162 Celtic music, 170, 317 Charade, 50 Chemical Brothers, 53, 58, 175 Chinese, 151 classical pieces/styles/composers, 53–7, 157, 317, 356 The Dairy of Anne Frank (sirens), 148 Django Reinhardt, 171 “Dragnet” theme, 289 Enter the Dragon, 50 Firebird, 49 folk music, 119, 158 folk music and contemporary influences, 56 for songs, 691 French music, 154–5 (20th century) The Fugitive, 60 The Godfather, 154 Goldsmith, Jerry, 53

Index

820

Goodwin, Ron, 51 Górecki, Henryk, 57 (Symphony No. 3) The Great Escape, 49–50 Theme, 49 (Fig. 3.1) gypsy music, 119, 170, 356 Hamlisch, Marvin, 60 Heat, 625 heavy metal, 66 Herrmann, Bernard, 22, 50, 60, 659 Hitchcock, Alfred, 22 Hong Kong, 150 Horner, James, 60, 63 Howard, James Newton, 60 Indian music, 152 Indiana Jones, 219 Irish music, 148, 357. See also Celtic. Italian music, 119, 357 Italian Symphony (Mendelssohn), 54 James Bond movies (John Barry style), 53, 317 Japanese, 143, 147–8, 171, 357 jazz, 120, 129, 142 (bebop), 160 “Johnny B.Goode,” 699 Joplin, Scott, 120 Latino, 160 La Traviata, 56 Lawrence of Arabia, 50 Mahler, Gustav, 54, 265 Mancini, Henry, 60 “Man from U.N.C.L.E., The,” 53 Mendelssohn, Felix, 54 (Italian Symphony), 54, 352 middle Eastern, 170 middle European lullaby, 54 Midnight Express, 60 Milhaud, Darius, 155 “Mission Impossible,” 53 Moroder, Giorgio, 60 Nelly, 58 (rap) Newman, Thomas, 60, 63 no role models, Domestic Disturbance, 69 Edward Scissorhands, 64 Tarzan, 69 Training Day, 69 North by Northwest, 50 Orbit, William, 7 Orff, Carl, 60 Parker, Charlie, 142

Index

821

Penderecki, Krzysztof, 248 Penguin Cafe Orchestra, 63 (i am sam) “Peter Gunn,” 53, 175 The Pink Panther, 60 plagiarism, 59 Poulenc, Francis, 155 Pucinni, Giacomo, 143 rap, 58 (Nelly), 66 Reinhardt, Django, 171 rock and roll, 171, 162 Rolling Stones, 58 Roman canzona, 143 Romancing the Stone, 216 Romanian music, 287 Ross, Herb, 81 Rossini, Gioacchino, 352 Rush Hour, 51 Russian music, 152, 170, 317 Satie, Erik, 120 Schifrin, Lalo, 51, 53 songs, 58, 691, 697 Sophie’s Choice, 60, 66 Speed, 50 specific styles, 50 Stravinsky, Igor, 49 “Strawberry Fields,” 685 Swedish music, 154 symphonic music, 53 Tahitian music, 152 Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, 50 Thunderball 60 Titanic, 49 turn-of-the-twentieth century, 120, 163 Two for the Road, 49 2001: A Space Odyssey, 289 Vivaldi, Antonio, 55 (Mandolin Concerto), 315 Wagner, Richard, 155 waltz, 138 Waterworld, 60 Young, Christopher, 60 Rolling Stones, 58 Romancing the Stone, 4, 437 (orchestra as rhythm), 439 (Fig. 15.6) Romantic Symphony (Howard Hanson), 67 Romeo and Juliet, 367 (Fig. 14.5) Rookie, The, 642 (for study) Roots: The Next Generation, 292 Rose, Cameron (click book author), 194 Rosemount, Norman (director), 56

Index

822

Rosenman, Leonard, 401 and 426 (East of Eden), 730 Rosenthal, Laurence, 80, 143, 153, 167, 309, 318, 414, 746 Peter the Great, Theme, 154 (Fig. 6.10) Who Will Love My Children?, Theme, 168 (Fig. 6.17) Ross, Herb (director), 79, 695, 697, 700 Rossini, Gioacchino, 352 Rota, Nino, 119, 342, 356, 364 The Godfather, Finale Consisting of The Godfather Waltz, 346 (Fig. 13.17) Romeo and Juliet, End Title Love Theme, 367 (Fig. 14.5) Rough cut, 15 Rózsa, Miklós, 257, 470 Rubinstein, Arthur B., 5, 50, 56, 139, 746 Rudy, 357 Rush Hour, 51, 371, 419 (ethnic), 433 (ethnic percussion), 604, 618–20 (Fig. 21.12), 620–2 (Fig. 21.13), 643 (for study) Russell, Ken (director/writer), 469, 559 Russia House, The, 152 Russian music, 152, 170, 317 Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! The, 290 S Sadat, 50, 99, 148, 166, 206 (Fig. 9.1) Safan, Craig, 6, 114, 152, 216, 288, 318, 322, 559, 746 Sager, Carole Bayer (lyricist), 678–81, 686, 695 Saint-Marie, Buffy lyricist/singer), 682 Salinger, Conrad (orchestrator), 669 Salvador, 146, 229, 232–3 (Fig. 10.5) Same theme, different setting, 317 Sampling, 468, 569 Sands, Dennis (mixer), 518, 526, 528, 533, 537, 539, 546, 746 Satie, Erik, 120 Scalia, Pietro (film editor), 568 Scarface, 40, 282, 301, 568 Scaturro, Peter, 651 Schaffner, Franklin J. (director), 75 Schedules (composing), 9 planning orchestra sessions, 97, 108 time to compose, 113–4 Scent of a Woman, 303, 419 (modal, M.T.) Scharf, Walter, 305 Schifrin, Lalo, 51, 53, 371, 419, 604, 644 Dirty Harry, Francis Drake Boulevard, 395 (Fig. 14.21) Rush Hour, Main Title, 618–20 (Fig. 21. 12) Rush Hour, Lee Chases Juntao, 620–2 (Fig. 21.13) Schoenberg, Arnold, 375 Score, The, 355, 447 (for study) Score lengths, 83 Scores, preparing, 525

Index

823

Scores thrown out, 60 Scoring for television, 645–62 “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” 645–6, 654 composing, 653–4 dubbing, 658 equipment, 647 electronics, 647, 649, 652 (Mike Post) getting help, 647 and 654 (Mike Post) “Haunted,” 657 “Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” 648 (Fig. 22.1) long form, 659 networks and broadcasting companies, 657 “Odyssey 5,” 646, 654, 658 package deals/fees, 96–7, 109, 720 performance royalties, 110, 719 rates, 723 “The Rockford Files,” 119–23 role models, use of, 651 (“X-Files”) samples, use of, 646, 649 samples to recreate an orchestral sound, 646, 649 schedules, 114, 645, 654–6, 659 scoring with orchestra, 659 series, 645–63 “Simpsons, The,” 658 “Sopranos, The,” 662 (use of songs) sound effects, 652–4 television/film differences, act-ins and act-outs, 663 bumpers and stings, 663 formats, 100 producer, working with, 654–7, 663 sound changes when transmitted to broadcast, 658 spotting, 646 stings, 664 time to compose, 114 “24,” 645, 652–4, 658 “The X-Files,” 645, 651–2, Scoring like a ballet, 267, 270, 283 Scoring stage, the. See Recording, the scoring stage. Scoring trailers, 7 Scott, Ridley (director/producer), 6, 21, 25, 41, 352, 569 Scott, Tom, 604 Stir Crazy, Disappearing Duo, 623–5 (Fig. 21.14) Scott, Tony (director/producer), 21–3, 695 Screen Actors Guild (SAG), 102 Screening, the first, 41 Scripts, 38–9 composers’ responses to reading, 38

Index

824

composers’ views about reading, 38 music indicated in script, 38 (i am sam, 10), 39, what to look for, 38–9 Secondary Markets Fund (A. F. of M.), 104–6 Seems Like Old Times, 300 Segue Music, 86–96 (spotting notes, etc.), 551 (dubbing stage log) Seltzer, David (writer/director), 64, 745 SESAC, 110– See also Performance royalties. Set recording, 514 Shaft, 26, 679 “Shaft,” 679 Shaiman, Marc, 20, 158, 221, 285, 358 The American President, Main Title, 155–6 (Fig. 6.11) Shakespeare in Love, 356 Shawshank Redemption, The, 468 Shearmur, Edward, 39, 46, 84, 220, 221, 234, 239, 283, 286, 371, 429–, 479, 516, 552, 559, 576, 587, 642, 747 K-PAX, Constellation Lyra, 241–3 (Fig. 10.9), 490 Shelton, Ron (director/writer/producer), 54 Shipping News, The, 454, 518, 541 Shire, David, 5, 23, 80, 119, 161, 205, 309, 356, 360, 375, 388 (Figs. 14.16 and 14.17), 389, 390 (Fig. 14.18), 419, 603, 687, 692, 730, 747 Shooting to playback, 667–70 Shore, Howard, 5–, 119, 138, 164, 171, 221, 229, 232, 234, 245, 281, 305–6, 324, 333, 365, 419, 448, 469, 552, 571, 640, 642, 747 The Cell, M1, 167 (Fig. 6.16) Crash, Main Title, 571 (Fig. 20.1) eXistenZ, Main Title, 335 (Fig. 13.8) eXistenZ, Main Title, 335–6 (Fig. 13.9) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings, A Knife in the Dark, 136–8 (Fig. 6.6) Naked Lunch, 424–5 (Fig. 14.38) The Silence of the Lambs, 221–5 (Fig. 10.1) Short cues, 77 Shostakovich, Dmitri, 486 Shrek, 178, 219, 281, 419 (modal) Shuken, Leo (orchestrator), 486 Shure, Paul (concertmaster), 500, 528, 747 Shyamalan, M. Night (director/writer/producer), 19, 23–5, 64, 178, 286, 477 Siegel, David (director/writer/producer), 624 Signs, 217, 324, 327 (Fig. 13.4), 328–30 (Fig. 13.5), 356, 456, 468, 470 (Fig. 16.7) Silence of the Lambs, The, 119, 221–5 (Fig. 10.1), 228, 332 Silvestri, Alan, 5, 60, 69, 115, 285, 288, 314, 437, 539, 578, 586, 747 Clan of the Cave Bear, The Glacier Trek, 580–3 (Fig. 20.3) Romancing the Stone, The Big Burn, 439 (Fig. 15.6) Simpson, Don (producer), 695 “Simpsons, The,” 651 “Six Feet Under,” 651, 658

Index

825

Sixteen Candles, 40, 300 Sixth Sense, The, 19, 259, 267 (Fig. 10.19), 268 (Fig. 10.20), 283, 449 (for study), 586 (for study) Sketches, 173–6, 304, 483–4, 487 (Tiomkin) beginning the sketch, 317 MIDI sketches, 484, 488–92 MIDI sketches and audio mockups, 484 Sketching the rhythms, 428 Sleepless in Seattle, 20 Sleuth, 25 Small, Michael, 385 The Postman Aways Rings Twice, The Kitchen, 422 (Fig. 14.36) The Postman Aways Rings Twice, Main Title, 419–22 (Fig. 14.35) Star Chamber, Main Title, 402–3 (Fig. 14.27) Smalley, Scott (orchestrator), 206, 274, 452, 486, 488, 492, 497, 499, 521, 573, 635, 748 SMPTE time code, 79, 207, 769 (Appendix D) SMPTE time code on videotape, 207 (Fig. 9.2) Snow Falling on Cedars, 115, 147, 171, 248, 413, 417 (Fig. 14.34), 427 (harmony as theme), 573–4 (Fig. 20.2), 587 (for study) Snow, Mark, 8, 227, 259, 286, 353, 385, 419, 444, 448, 450, 646, 651–2, 657, 748 The X-Files: Fight the Future 3M1, (Fig. 14.25) Snow, Tom (lyricist), 697 Sobel, Curt (music editor), 62, 66, 625, 631–3, 747 Somewhere in Time, 75 Songs for films, 675–705 the artist, 693 comedies, 290 content, 679–86 demonstrating the song, 691–3 direct lyric statements, 678–84 Theme from Shaft, 678 Footloose, 695–700 “Dancing in the Sheets,” 697 “Let’s Hear It for the Boy,” 697–700 working with the artists, 700 functions of a film song, 676–8 hits and big business, 695 Beverly Hills Cop, 696 The Big Chill 695 Ghostbusters, 695 “My Heart Will Go On,” 695 “Nobody Does It Better,” 695 Officer and a Gentleman, An, 695 Top Gun, 696 in documentary, 290 in the script, 39 oblique statement, 685 “The Windmills of Your Mind,” 684 overview lyrics, 676–86

Index

826

“Nobody Does It Better,” 684–6, 695 “Fame,” 687 “It Goes Like It Goes,” 686, 691 point of view of the character(s), 678–84 “Ready to Take a Chance Again,” 678, 693 “Best That You Can Do,” 678–81 “Up Where We Belong,” 681 “When She Loved Me,” 681 “If I Didn’t Have You,” 681–4 “My Heart Will Go On,” 684, 695 prerecording the songs, 39 rewriting, or writing another song, 691 rhythmic framework, 689 same song, different meaning, 686 “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?,” 686 scratch track for shooting, 697 songwriting collaboration, 688–9 syncing lyric to visuals, 689–91 Toy Story, 676 using role models, 690, 698 using the song theme in score, 675 “The Way We Were,” 681, 691 working with the artists, 700 Yentl, 702–5 establishing cinematic use of songs, 702 “No Wonder,” 702 “This Is One of Those Moments,” 705 “Where Is It Written?,” 702 Son Rise: A Miracle of Love, 437 Sophie’s Choice, 60, 66, 76, 217, 315 “Sopranos, The,” 662 (use of songs) Sound and the Fury, The, 270 Sound effects and music, 554, 557 Sound, film, 526 Sound loop, the, 201 Soundtrack, 114, 267 Soundtrack albums, 34, 726–7 Source music, 39, 298–302 ethnic to suggest locale, 146 interweaving source and underscore, 300 pitch problems between source and underscore, 300 Spangler, Clark (synthesist), 536, 568, 577, 748 Spargo, Becky (Mancuso) (music supervisor), 700 Spawn of the North, The, 486 Spear, David (composer/orchestrator/educator), 188, 484, 486, 747 Speed, 6, 50, 323, 419 (pedal point), 430, 438 Speed 14, 570 Spellbound, 257, 470

Index

827

Spielberg, Steven (director/producer), 64, 173, 558 Split chases (cut backs), 205 Spotting the film, 72–85 changes after scoring, 84 The Count of Monte Cristo, 83 duration of spotting sessions, 72 ending a cue, 77 hard out, 77 tailing out, 77 The Gift, 73 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets spotting notes, 86–7 (Fig. 4.1) music summary sheet, 88–92 (Fig. 4.2) timing notes, 92–4 (Fig. 4.3) historical process, 72 importance of acting, 79 length of score, 73, 75, 83–5, 129 (Patton) Levin, Erma, 83 Marks, Gene, 83 music summary sheet, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 88–92 (Fig. 4.2) music where director didn’t see it, 75 ‘night, Mother, 80 no music in specific scene(s), American Beauty, 76 The Green Mile, 75 Max Dugan Returns, 81 ‘night, Mother, 80 Titanic, 77 Unbreakable, 77 prepare for spotting, 73 short cues, bridges, transitions, long cues, 77 Somewhere in Time, 75 Sophie’s Choice, 76 spotting notes, 72, 79, 83 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 86–8 (Fig. 4.1) spotting terms, 81–3 starting a cue, 75–7 tailing out, 77 timing notes, 79, 83 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 92–6 (Fig. 4.3) when to use music, 73 Spy Game, 23 Spy Who Loved Me, The, 317, 684–6, 695 Stalking Moon, The, 132 Star Chamber, The, 385, 402–3 (Fig. 14.27) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, 25, 114, 276 (Fig. 10.26), 277, 454, 457 (Fig. 16.4) Star Trek IV, 142

Index

828

Star Wars, 162, 216, 287, 325 (Fig. 13.2), 356, 371, 374 (Fig. 14.10), 419 (polytonality), 456, 563 (for study) Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, 266, 270, 569 Star Wars Episode Two: Attack of the Clones, 551, 561 Stems, 175 Steiner, Fred, 6 Steiner, Max, 257 Steiner, Nyle (EWI inventor), 536 Stern, Michael (mixer), 515, 747 Sting, The, 66 Sting, stingers, 78 Stir Crazy, 604, 623–5 (Fig. 21.14) Stockhausen, Karlheinz, 6 Stone, Oliver (director/writer/producer), 16, 39 (source), 747 Stravinsky, Igor, 49, 371 The Rite of Spring, 372 (Fig. 14. a) Petroushka, 372 (Fig. 14. b) Streamers and punches, 190, 525, 526 Streamline Music Scoring System, 209–11 Streetcar Named Desire, A (Hamlisch, TV), 26 Streetcar Named Desire, A (North), 160 Streisand, Barbra (director/producer/singer/actor), 700–5 Streitenfeld, Marc (music editor), 31 Stuart Little, 288 Stuart Little II, 288 Styles, musical, 154–70 Sum of All Fears, The, 286, 314, 322, 419 (ethnic), 434–7 (Fig. 15.4), 437 (orchestra as rhythm), 449 (for study), 452, 492, breakdown chart, 509–10 (Fig. 17.2), 530 Superman, 128, 372 Synchronization. See Syncing; also Timings and clicks 189– Syncing, 188–211 aleatoric music, 189 clicks and clock, 193 punches and streamers, 190 to film. See Timings and Clicks, 188–211 to playback (Back to the Future), 539 with free timing, 189 Synclavier, 8, 152, 647 Szwarc, Jeannot (director), 75 Szyskiewicz, Diana (ASCAP), 110, 722, 723 T Tailing out, 77 Takemitsu, Toru, 6 Taken, 659, 660–2 (Fig. 22.4), 662 Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The, 160, 204–5, 374–5, 388 (Figs. 14.16 and 14.17), 389–91

Index

829

(Fig. 14.18), 419 (twelve-tone), 603 Tangerine Dream, 440, 450, 568, 573 Tap dancing (postscored), 669 Taps, Jonie (music executive), 678 Technical and Practical, 503–11 Television 645–62 act ins, act outs, bumpers, 663 getting the job, 710 main and end titles, 650–4 Temp dub, 64 Tempereau, John (agent), 709, 710, 713, 715, 724, 747 Temp score. See Temp tracks. Temp tracks, 44, 58–68 during editing, 64 for screenings, 65, 180 historical usage, 60 how composers work with, 21, 66–8 pitch shifting, time stretching, 60 recording session to create, 70 remain in film, 66 Snow Falling on Cedars, 248 temp is spotting, 72 using composer’s own music, 68 work process, 62 Tempo and/or pulse, 317–9, 428, 448 (for study) 29, 38 Testament, 225, 302 Texas Rangers, 184 That’s Life!, 281, 385, 400 (Fig. 14.26), 693 Themes, 129 (Patton) They Shoot Horses Don’t They?, 673 Thief, 440, 450 (for study), 568, 573 Thin Red Line, The, 46, 569 “This Is One of Those Moments,” 705 Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, 50 “Through the Looking Glass,” 693 Thunderball, 60 Time to compose, 3, 8, 113–4 Time to record, 515–8, 539–41 (time pressures) Time to Kill, A, 452 Timing examples, see 189–202 Timings and clicks, 188–211 accuracy requirements, 197, 200 aleatoric cues, 190, 192 awkward tempo, 543 Auricle Time Processor, 188, 199, 205, 207, 209 adjusting timings between two points, 199, 202 backtracking, 203 building click tracks, 193 (traditional),

Index

830

calculating click tempo using stopwatch, 503 calculating click equivalent of metronome reading, 503 calculator method for timings, 207, 766–8 (Appendix C) click book, 191 (12-frame click, Fig. 8.2), 193, 194, 196 (13-frame click, Fig. 8.5), 209 clock, 188, 193 Cueline Aps, 210 cue timings vs. SMPTE timings, 207 cut back cues (split chases), 204–5 Dead hits, 78, 204, 255–9 and 265(hitting the action), 284(for study), 189, 198, 199–201 drop-frame format, 208, 769 (Appendix D) film frame divided into decimals, 193 film frame divided into eighths, 193 (Fig. 8.3) footage/timing conversions (Appendix B), 763 free timing, 188, 189 hitting cues, 197, 199–202 meter changes, 207 metronome equivalents of click tempos, 193 (conversion) music editor helps, 31 non-drop-frame, 208 note values at a given click, 194, 198 odd meters, 210 offsetting timings, 198, 199 (Fig. 8.7; Fig 8.8) ritards, accelerandos, fermatas, a tempos, 202 ritard timings, 201 (Fig. 8.9; Fig. 8.10) ritard timings, 202 (Fig. 8.11) SMPTE time code, 207, 769 (in Appendix D) SMPTE time code on videotape, 207 (Fig. 9.2) the sound loop, 201 split chases (cut backs), 205 streamers, 188 Streamline Music Scoring System, 209–11 tempo and mood changes within clicks, 205 test adjacent click tables, 198 timing examples, see 189–202, 542 (Fig. 18.2), 543–5 (Figs. 18.3, 18.4, and 18.5) timings and film information on sketch, 545 (Fig. 17.1) traditional methods, 188–9, 192 using clicks and clocks, 193 variable clicks, 202 videocassettes/digitized video, 207 with pocket calculator, 207 They Shoot Horses Don’t They?, 673 Thomas Crown Affair, The, 684 Tiomkin, Dmitri, 57, 730 Titanic, 49, 77, 147, 303, 365, 419 (modal), 684, 693–6 (song) To Be or Not to Be, 539 Tom Jones, 356 Tone of dramatic work and music, 216–9, 280, 636 Tootsie, 604, 626–9 (Fig. 21.15), 629 (Fig. 21.16), 644 (for study)

Index

831

Top Gun, 696 Torn Curtain, 483 Touch of Evil 303 Toy Story, 676 Toy Story 14, 682 Traffic, 548 Trailers, 8 Training Day, 21, 114, 166, 558, 563 (for study) Transitions, 79 Tronick, Michael (music editor/film editor), 58, 204, 747 Trumbull, Douglas (director/producer/special effects), 452 Tudor, David (electronic musician), 5 Twelve-tone row, 161, 388 (Figs. 14.16 and 14.17) Twelve-tone techniques, 374–5, 389–90 (Pelham, Fig. 14.18) “24,” xxiv, 205, 645 Two for the Road, 49 2001: A Space Odyssey, 68, 289 Type casting, 298 U “Umatic 3/4” VCR format, 208 Unbreakable, 77, 180, 282, 286 Uneven and changing meters, 443 Underscoring, 515 (defined) Underscoring dialogue, 270–1, 275, 277–9 Understating the drama, 279–47, 281 Under the Volcano, 341, 355, 454 (Fig. 16.2) Union scales. See A.F. of M. Up the Down Staircase, 346, 351 (Fig. 13.23), 476 (Fig. 16.10) “Up Where We Belong,” 681 Using contemporary music, 589–642 About a Boy, 641 (for study) American Beauty, 641 (for study) Bandits, 593 (Fig. 21.3), 641 (for study) bass lines and structure, 589, 592 Black Hawk Down, 594 Catch Me If You Can, 598 The Cell 642 (for study) Charlie’s Angels, 642 (for study) Confidence, 600–2 (Fig. 21.6) contemporary rhythm sections, 589, 592–5, 599 contemporary scores, 599–636 (includes many individual films) The Deep End, 603, 624–5, 640 (for study) Desperately Seeking Susan, 605 (Fig. 21.7) describe the style, 594 electronic elements, 595–9 48 HRS., 640 give them freedom, 592–3, 638 (solo artists) Grand Canyon, 590–3 (Fig. 21.1), 642 (for study)

Index

832

Hardball, 642 (for study) Hoosiers, 605–7 (Fig. 21.8) The Hurricane, 593, 608–9 (Fig. 21.9), 640 (for study) i am sam, 640 (for study) The Insider, 625, 642 (for study) know the style, 594 K-PAX, 643 (for study) The Man in the Moon, 589, 642 (for study) Nine to Five, 609–12 (Fig. 21.10) Payback, 603, 613–7 (Fig. 21. 11), 643 (for study) Pay It Forward, 598 (Fig. 21.5) Reactor (software), 625 Reason (software), 625 Road to Perdition, 596 Rock Star, 596 (Fig. 21.4), 635, 637, 643 (for study) The Rookie, 642 (for study) Rush Hour, 604, 618–20 (Fig. 21.12), 620–2 (Fig. 21.13), 643 (for study) solo artist, 638–40 Source music, 640 Stir Crazy, 623–5 (Fig. 21.14) Tootsie, 604, 644 (for study) write for the players, 594 USC Film and Television Scoring program, 188 See also Buddy Baker. Using electronic music, 568– See also Electronic music and scoring. Using harmony, 359– See also Harmony. Using melody, 322– See also Melody. Using orchestration, 452–501. See also Orchestration. Using rhythm, 428–49 as a thematic idea, 322, 437 aleatoric, 444, 447, 450 (for study) contemporary rhythm section, writing for, 589–95, 596 ethnic percussion, 433 Gladiator rhythm sketch, 433 (Fig. 15.2) Gladiator cue based on Fig. 15.2, 434 (Fig. 15.3) orchestra as rhythm, 433, 437, 449 (for study) percussion section and electronics, 428–9, 433, 448 (for study), 569 polyrhythms, 443–6, 450 (aleatoric, for study) rhythm as a thematic idea, 437 rhythmic ostinatos, 437, 440, 443, 450 (for study) rhythm section, 160 sketching the rhythms, 428 tempo and/or pulse, 317–9, 428, 434 (for study) Under the Volcano, 454

Index

833

uneven and changing meters, 443, 450 (for study) variable pulse, 319 V Vangelis, 353 Vanilla Sky, 555 Variable pulse, 319 Verdict, The, 414, 423 (Fig. 14.37) Verhoeven, Paul (director), 23 Vertical Limit, 174, 179, 287 Vettraino, Rick (copyist/music librarian), 484, 495 Victor/Victoria, 255, 293, 297 (Fig. 11.2), 298 (Fig. 11.3) Vidar, Nick (synthesist), 536 Videocassettes (in spotting), and mockups, 180 and SMPTE time code, 83, 207 Vivaldi, Antonio, 55 (Mandolin Concerto), 315 W Wagner, Richard, 155 Wait until Dark 469 Wallin, Dan, 27, 275, 526 Walton, William, 292 Wannberg, Ken (music editor), 33, 64, 72, 173, 515, 526, 551, 557, 569 Warbeck, Stephen, 356 WarGames, 139 Waterworld, 60 Way We Were, The, 281, 317, 454, 678, 681, 691 “The Way We Were,” 681, 691 Web sites, 791 Weird Science, 287 Wendkos, Paul (director), 15, 16, 29, 304, 452, 730, 731 West, Simon (director/writer/producer), 27 West Side Story, 667–8 Westworld, 570, 586 (for study) Whalen, Michael (composer/educator), 204, 719–21 “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?,” 686, 689 “(What a) Wonderful World,” 300 What Lies Beneath, 115, 284, 314 Whedon, Joss (writer/producer), 646 “When She Loved Me,” 681 “Where Is it Written?,” 702 Who Will Love My Children?, 166, 168 (Fig. 6.17) Wilkins, Don (educator), 189 Williams, Harry-Gregson, 23, Williams, John, 23 (Foreword), 33, 65, 73, 128, 133, 173, 188, 189, 216, 259, 267, 270, 279, 280, 281, 285, 287, 292, 304, 307, 322, 324, 328, 334, 50, 352–3, 355, 356, 371, 372, 381, 419, 428, 436, 447, 449, 455, 469, 516, 526, 557, 564, 571

Index

834

A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Cryogenics, 348 (Fig. 13.19) A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Hide and Seek, 398 (Fig. 14.24) A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Reading the Words, 235 (Fig. 10.6) Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Barry is Kidnapped, 448 (Fig. 15.10) Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Mountain, 135 (Fig. 6.5) Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Mountain, 332 (Fig. 13.7) E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, The Departure, 386 (Fig. 14.14) E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, E.T.’s Machine, 476 (Fig. 16.9) Harry Potter and the Socerer’s Stone, The Prologue, 260–3 (Fig. 10.16) Jaws, Jaws Titles, 324 (Fig. 13.1) Minority Report, Anderton on the Run, 430–2 (Fig. 15.1) Minority Report, Robotic Spyders, 326 (Fig. 13.3) The Patriot, Remembering Fort Wilderness, 338, (Fig. 13.11) Return of the Jedi, Brother and Sister, 277–80 (Fig. 10.27) Star Wars, Theme, 325 (Fig. 13.2) Star Wars, The War, 374 (Fig. 14.10) Williams, Patrick, 5, 67, 114, 352 Williams, Paul (songwriter/lyricist), 452 “Windmills of Your Mind, The,” 689, 691, 693 Wise, Robert (director/producer), 570, 668 Witness, 301, 536, 579, 588 (for study) Wolfer, Bill (lyricist), 697 Woodbury, Al (orchestrator), 673 Work methods, mechanics of, 304–20 Wozzek, 19 (Raksin) Wright, Rayburn (composer/educator), 271, 523 (Fig. 18.1), 752–3 Writer’s block, 309 X ‘The X-Files,” 645, 651–2 X-Files: Fight the Future, The, 60, 226, 259, 351, 385, 399 (Fig. 14.25), 419 (pedal point), 443, 447, 449 (for study) Y Yared, Gabriel, 358 Yentl 702–5 “You and Me,” Young, Christopher, 60, 63, 74, 79, 115, 120, 129, 152, 173, 175–6, 179, 216, 238, 256, 270, 280 (for study), 305, 307, 322, 342, 355, 419, 453, 455, 518, 537, 542, 592, 600, 641, 709 Bandits, Ingenious Escape, 593 (Fig. 21.3) The Gift, Donnie, 593–237 (Fig. 10.7) The Hurricane, Put Him in the Hole, 608–9 (Fig. 21.9) The Hurricane, Telling the Story Pt. 3 & 4, 129–32 (Fig. 6.4), 593 Young Frankenstein, 39, 55, 56 (Fig. 3.3), 267, 540 Young Sherlock Holmes, 60 Z Zadan, Craig (producer), 700

Index

835

Zemeckis, Robert (director/producer/writer), 4 Zimmer, Hans, 22, 26, 32, 42, 46, 66, 68, 119, 129, 152, 171, 180, 234, 287, 304, 347, 357, 372, 419, 429, 519, 528, 531, 533, 539–, 568, 569, 594 Gladiator, The Bodies, 353–4 (Fig. 13.24) w/Gerrard Gladiator, The Gladiator Waltz, 180–2 (Fig. 7.1) Gladiator rhythm sketch, 433 (Fig. 15.2) Gladiator cue based on Fig. 15.2, 434 (Fig. 15.3) Gladiator, Strength and Honor, 378–9 (Fig. 14.11) Zucker, Jerry (producer/director/writer), 178