CREATIVE PROCESS

For decades, I have spent most of my life in a studio making music for films.

What keeps my creative spirit and music vital and fresh is that the alchemy and elements of each film are different, each time inspiring a unique score. I never lack for passion. That, plus a burning desire to make each film score the best it can be, is the fire that drives me to work so hard. The  powerful role music plays in a film is extraordinary. An excellent score can greatly augment the quality of the film. For this reason I dedicate myself completely to my work.

When I begin a score, I spend time with the director, discussing the film in great detail; analyzing characters, story, emotional tone, instrumentation, placement, scene by scene as well as overall. You can imagine that without that direction, one can score the same scene many different ways. Enlightened by our immersive discussions, I watch the film numerous times, searching for a musical theme.

I see each film as a canvas upon which to paint the score. The score is already there, I just need to listen to reveal it. I play with this concept of painting with music in the hope of being freer in my composition — chiaro scuro, colors, tones.

The score is like a string of pearls. Each scene's cue has its importance, its brilliance if you may, yet its role within the sum of all the cues is equally as important. This stringing together is what tells the overall musical story. Whether I choose to score a scene in simple harmony with the mood or score counterpoint to it, informs what the music for that scene will be. This is one of the many choices made in the process of scoring. I consider what cue precedes and follows a cue. After finding my initial ideas for scenes or an overall theme, I sketch them to picture and share it with the director. Sometimes the composing is fast, but what often takes time is the arranging, orchestrating to picture, creating new sounds, new techniques, recording live performances and mixing. I love to go to the final sound mix. I crave a good mix of the music, dialogue and sound effects. After all the hard work and commitment, one yearns to hear it placed just so. 

In scoring, my preference is always to forge ahead on a path of discovery of the new. Innovation and working outside the box ignites me. These small audio revolutions makes me feel alive and drives my belief that anything and everything is possible. This is my favorite path. I believe when we introduce new ideas to others, they too are ignited.

For projects that call for more classical or traditional music, creativity presents itself in a different and beautiful way. Immersed in what has come before, I am inspired by the great scoring traditions of the past, where powerful themes are important. I relish painting with the rich sonority of existing acoustic instruments and ensembles.

To create new techniques and invent new sounds, one creates more with the mind, but to compose a good theme one must create from the heart. A composer must always use both their heart and mind. I revel in working with both with the full knowledge that our best work often occurs when we lose our minds and allow our instincts to compose away.

You Have to be Able to Think on Your Feet

On The Boy Who Cried Bitch, a song the director had intended to license couldn’t be licensed and I had an hour to come up with a new cue for a key scene. It was an eerie scene where Karen Young, playing the Mother of the disturbed boy, returns to their house. Her troubled son has left all the lights on and curtains blowing — signs a confrontation between the two would ensue. I went into the recording booth breathing anxiously and sculpted those sounds into something other worldly. I then composed a cello solo atop of it with other FX woven in.

On Love Walked In, I was supposed to create a score electronically with a few live overdubs. Suddenly, I got a call that the Producers loved the score so much that they booked a studio and full orchestra in Prague. I had 10 days to render the entire score from electronic to acoustic with new orchestrations, parts and all.

Sometimes unexpectedly art will inspire me along with the film. For Life Beyond Earth the theme came to me while I was between a Calder floating like a solar system above my head and a Miro painting depicting planets at the Guggenheim. Similarly, for Secrets of the Code I was inspired by Dies irae and the use of Tibetan bowls to explore various perspectives on Christianity.

Embracing the unexpected paid off in the most beautiful way when I had a last minute invite to meet the great director, Sergio Leone at a friend's home for dinner. My friend had been working with Leone on Once Upon a Time in America. I made chocolate mousse for the dinner and, as the only one of the 6 guests who spoke Italian, I was seated next to Leone. We talked throughout dinner about what it was like for him to work with Maestro Morricone over the years. I learned so much that night that would go on to inform my work. It had also worked to my benefit that I had made a huge bowl of the mousse, which Leone seemed to think was all for him, so we had plenty of time to talk.