In the film work, I love to work mainly from the script and from talking to the directors, so a lot of the music, big portions of the scores that I've made, have been composed before the movies were even shot.
The only thing that takes away from it is when they steal some music from one of my movies and put it in a TV commercial. I am not crazy about influencing TV commercials. But if I legitimately influence someone making a movie, I think that is really flattering.
I guess we decided to make a new record 3 years ago when Nancy was done scoring for Almost Famous.
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.
My playing music is strictly for fun. When I was in a band, I was really excited to talk about it since I had never really played music to that extent. It was never meant as something I would consider as anything more than having fun with my friends. But I think I would enjoy writing music for the movies that I'm working on.
Horror allows you to do things as a composer than you're able to do in no other style of movie. The music has to be aggressive. You can't tiptoe around. It has to be incredibly focused dramatically - no time for second thoughts. It needs to generate a kneejerk reaction.
The people who do the scoring and the music for movies are very talented, really special people.
I think of each movie as a puzzle. The fun is in solving the puzzle: finding a musical identity for the picture, however that can be summed up.
I've scored all the movies that Jacques Audiard has directed. It's a long love story between us, trying to find a voice that would belong to his films only.
Every movie you score you hope is unlike anything you have done before. You are always trying to not sound like yourself.
Composing is to think. It is to have your mind trying to find what is the best sound that the movie is going for: the best melody, the best texture, the best structure and dramaturgic arc for the film. Then you discuss that with the director. He's the leader. He's the one showing you the path to follow to find the soul of the film.
I see movies all the time that manipulate you by playing a high note on the piano or some string instrument, and suddenly you're crying. I'm sick of being told what to think.
Yes was a band where we could explore some of those ideas, but I knew that if I wanted to get into orchestral music and make a living at it, movies seemed to be a perfect spot.
What I love about film music is the variety. On one movie, you might be asked to do a completely electronic score, and then another might ask you to do orchestral only.
I try and write a fair amount in the beginning without the movie. And then when I do get the movie I create these demos, just mock-ups, and I throw them up against the picture and some of it sticks and some of it doesn't. But I'm very careful before I play anything to picture, because that's such a profoundly important moment.
My job scoring a horror movie is like being the barker at a carnival. A good barker can get anyone to walk into the roped-off tent. Especially with the main title, my job is to convince the audience to take the leap into the film even though their better sense is telling them, "I should put my popcorn down and get the hell outta here"!
