THOMAS NEWMAN

What satisfies me most are those nonverbal moments with players, when I sense them thinking and responding. And I think, 'Wow, this is amazing.' Hollywood gives us the money to do this. I want to be grateful for that, and I also don't want to waste it.

When you go into something like a space movie, you think there's going to be no music or little music.

I had ideas. A lot were good, but in many ways, I had no idea or experience about how to carry them out.

The thing I don't want to do as a film composer is reiterate. I prefer to subtextualize or to underline rather than to say, 'This is what you should be feeling.'

I first came to Abbey Road Studios in 1994. I scored 'Little Women' there. What I remember most about it was how hard it was to come to London from Los Angeles and conduct when you're jetlagged.

I didn't listen to any of my dad's scores.

Robert Altman was a very jovial guy and obviously a famed improviser and perhaps less effective in post-production, which is like the crystallising process. So I found myself at sea often with him because we'd have conversations about what music is, and in the end, I don't know how interested he was?

I realized so much of my life hasn't been in a well-lit room, and I realized the importance of documenting my experiences as a way to memorialize them.

I think I compose as a listener: improvising and listening back excites me because I get to ideas that never would have occurred. Then I bring in the computers and samplers... and I begin to loop and process and change them.

The thing about the creative process is it's so chaotic.

Part of me wants to stay hidden; it's no coincidence that I write movie music. It lets me stay in the shadows, in a way, but still lets me be expressive.

We're all shocked by new ideas, and we're less shocked when we hear them again. And less shocked when we hear them a third time.

Losing makes you strong.

When you see an early edited version, you're not sure what it is. The movie is getting on its wobbly legs.

Sometimes the best experiences are when I know nothing about this movie: I've never met the director, and I come and see something and I'm blank, because then it's coming at you in a way it would never come at you if you'd read the script, with an expectation.

In 'Saving Mr. Banks,' the challenge was just transitions. Time transitions from 1961 to 1906; how do you follow a character in one environment to another? And sometimes these transitions were quick, so how do you do that?

I guess there are certain conventions that come with film and with scoring film. So maybe one of those is menace in a lower register. It's trying to evoke some sense of chaos and adventure.

Music is one of the last elements in the creative process. It can and hopefully should tie a bow around an artistic concept, how a story moves forward, the pace of that storytelling.

In general, I probably have a shy nature. So the idea of poking out with my music is probably not something I want to do.

You want to say as little as you can and get the most punch out of it, always with the knowledge that people are not in the theater to listen to your music so much as to respond to the movie. You're a part of that experience.

There are moments when I invoke my dad and think about him on the podium, but in a very positive way. I don't feel at all intimidated by him. I feel like I've found my own voice.

It's a practical matter. If you're useful to others, you'll be hired.

The idea of creating film scores was terrifying for many years, into my 30s. It struck me as a career of doing 30-page term papers the night before they're due.

The rare opportunity of writing music for a movie about the making of 'Mary Poppins' was impossible to ignore. The fact that it could provide emotional content in relief of the struggles that the Sherman brothers and Walt Disney endured was reason enough to take on the challenge.

'Sugarcoat the Galaxy' is inspired by color-inflected photographs of galaxies. It likens sounds to spun sugar and confection, wrapping static harmonies inside energy and pace.