Process Makes Perfect

That’s a nice piano accordion you have there.
Yeah, I try to keep myself between classicism, “folkicism,” and technology. I like to be a rustic technophile, to combine all the elements.

How did you come to make the transition from your rock work to film composer?
I know it appears from the outside that there’s been a transition from rock to film, but in reality I was always seeing myself as a film composer. As much as I thoroughly enjoyed playing on a large stage, I started life as a classical pianist. Suddenly at age 18, I defected to jazz because I found some of the labels at the time were combining a European classicism with very much a gospel, bluesy, and African American element in there, and I like that combination. Then I discovered there’s a fine line between improvisation and composition, so I found I could compose in the jazz idiom with my classical roots. Meanwhile, I was getting a name for myself as a keyboard player, which led to me getting work with the Little River Band and touring with them. But I had my goals set on being a composer and I like the idea of storytelling in film.
I loved watching movies — as soon as video players existed I went out and bought one. I still watch as many as I can, and I like what the music does with that. I like the placement of music composition in contemporary culture. As Martin Scorcese said, filmmaking is almost the new religion. People gather in a place together, even if it’s in their living room, watch something and get inspired. In some way they have been preached to, and I see myself as the church organist of that new religion. [Laughs.] And melody is key in that — it’s the central point of composition, however simple or complex it is. The simpler, the better in most ways. There’s no point dazzling the audience with angular wit in a melody if it’s going to distract them from the story.

What movies have inspired you over the years?
Growing up I always liked the “sword and sandal” films like Spartacus and Ben Hur. I also liked the interesting films coming out of America from Robert Altman, particularly The Player, where I discovered Thomas Newman. I also love the adventure films like Raiders of the Lost Ark. I loved Star Wars, the epic nature of the film and the story telling.

Most of those films have an orchestral soundtrack, was that an appeal?
I think in our culture there are a few films that give a composer permission to go over the top, and epic adventures can do that. Lord of the Rings is a good recent example.

Your first solo album, Welcome to the Nightclub of My Mind from the late ’80s was very jazz-influenced wasn’t it?
Very much so. I listened to a lot of Herbie Hancock when I was younger, as well as Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett. I like the classicism in those players but there was also an earthy freedom in their playing. So my first album was very much just gathering all my toys together, some of which I still have. [Points to Kurzweil rack and Akai S1000.] It was about celebrating the idea that Percy Grainger [concert pianist, composer, and proponent of machine-performed music in the early 20th Century] pioneered, where there’s no interruption between the expression of the composer and the sound of the music — he was a visionary. He imagined that one day composers would play on instruments where all their textures and sonorities would be realized. He used to get frustrated with musicians interpreting his music to less than his satisfaction. So my first album typified the idea of the solo performer and composer — you are the whole sausage factory. I liked doing that and still do, but I have to be honest and say I now prefer the thrill of the unexpected bits of chaos, beauty, and soul that happens from a whole orchestra playing.

There’s power in an orchestra.
There’s more power. It might be a little funkier, a little less perfect in execution, and there are tuning things that may sound a little odd at first to a keyboard player who’s been boxed into the equal tempered scale.

Most composers need feedback on their work. You get feedback from a director and actual audiences. For a developing composer, do you have ideas on how they can get useful feedback on their compositions?
An important psychological tool in a songwriter is to care as much as you can in the development of your song, but then once you put it out for someone’s opinion, you need to let go of the need for it to be approved or enjoyed. If it is enjoyed, great! If it isn’t, embrace the criticism — if you haven’t hit the mark, just step outside of it and try to get into their frame of mind. If you put yourself in the situation of seeking approval when you start writing, it can be dangerous, as the work becomes commercially driven. At the point of creation, it must be for you — you need a sacred respect for your inner force. Don’t be distracted at that point by what you think the audience might like. The decisions made must be subconscious or gut-driven, not ego-driven.
At the point of delivery the ego comes in and has to process the response of the audience or director. You might recoil in horror at their reaction and think they’re fools and don’t get it. If you’re not reaching them, you need to impartially take on their criticism. It’s so important and it helps you grow. I’ve not always enjoyed the criticism, but I’ve enjoyed the end result. When a director asks me to re-score a scene because it hasn’t hit the mark, it informs me of what they’re actually looking for, as opposed to what I thought they were looking for. There’s a lot of layers of perception that need to be navigated through when you’re collaborating with another artist or trying to reach an audience.
Over the years I’ve had the fortune of performing live to a lot of people, so my body gets a sense of what the music feels like and instant feedback on what connects, and I think that’s served as a valuable subconscious teaching for me.

Do you ever get frustrated with deadlines where you may deliver something that the director is happy with, but you feel you could have done so much more with the piece?
Yes. Sometimes you write a theme for a movie and you want to develop that theme. It might have its genesis on a piano or guitar and be very simple, and there are moments when you want to develop it on other instruments and expand it to a wider palette. But for some reason, perhaps for a correct reason, the director wants it the same way every time, even to the point that it feels repetitious. It’s a little frustration that a composer needs to deal with. Our job is to serve the story and we can do that to the best of our ability and stick to our vision. Ultimately you need to collaborate and bow to director and producer’s wishes.

In bigger films, particularly those made in the U.S., there can be a great deal of resources that go into scoring and recording an orchestral soundtrack. Do you find the large team effort on the bigger projects creatively stifling compared to working on your own or with a small team?
You’ve hit on an interesting point. In Australia we live in an environment where we do tend to wear many hats, writing the music, playing many instruments, and then also music editing where the director comes in and wants to shift music around. They’ll say things like, “Let’s shift the music two seconds later,” and sometimes to your surprise, even though you’ve shaped the scene, new highlights can occur from shifting it around. It requires you to be outside of the music.
In America I think it’s healthy, and I’ve enjoyed working with music editors who take the music without the same attachment that I have to the positioning, and move it around at the request of the director, where they find new spots. I’ve found working with music editors fantastic. In fact, my manager has become my full-time music editor. He’ll suggest moving music around during the scoring itself. Orchestrators are also very useful in a team. I used to do my own orchestrations and I still design most of the cues that I do, but an orchestrator’s role is to translate your design and composition into precisely how many instruments should be playing, and what parts. I would never work without an orchestrator now. So while the American system appears oddly corporate and perhaps contradictory to the idea of art, there comes a point where it needs to become systemic, and the more people you have to help you, the quicker and more efficient it is.

So from a technology viewpoint, how do you and your orchestrator work with each other. You use Apple Logic?
Yes. He uses a virtually identical system as me, to the point we even have the same sound libraries. On the Aquamarine project they were sending me the film and dialogue via DigiDelivery. I’ve also used a new one called File Chute for OS X to do the same thing. I’ll download four gigabytes of video and shoot it over to my orchestrator, Ricky Edwards, so we’re all working off the same material.

So you do your work in MIDI?
Yes I work with MIDI and Ricky turns the MIDI into a score and orchestrates it. He knows what I like.

How are the scores created?
He uses Logic. We’ve always kept to Logic. In some cases I’ve given rough scores to orchestrators and they’ve either used Finale or hand-written the scores. I’ve found that for what I write, Logic gives some pretty superb results. I think there’s a couple of things like aleatoric notation, which I haven’t really explored, that’s harder to do in Logic. Finale would be better in cases like that. But I think the advantage of having everything under one roof means that Ricky can proof the score electronically, he can play the elements back and make sure that what’s on the paper is going to be good. I mean, the ability to make a PDF straight from that when we’re under the pump is excellent. I’ve continued to enjoy Logic because it does do everything in the one boat.

With the advent of affordable HD video cameras and project studios, there is an increasing amount of work out there for musicians interested in scoring for film. What are some lessons you had to learn the hard way when starting out?
Everything was much more analog when I started out, and I think I’m part of a fortunate generation that’s seen the transition from analog to digital. Analog is more about commitment. You’ve only got to look at a piano to know that. The same went for the recording process itself — cutting tape for cross-fades required commitment. Now tools that were only used by a few people have been put into the hands of everyone. I think it’s wonderful. What’s interesting is that the latest technology doesn’t make things quicker and it doesn’t make it better; just because anyone can shoot, you still need skills to do things well. Those who are committed are really going to follow it through. They may start out on a Casiotone keyboard, then realise they need to learn piano to get where they want to go. What the widespread availability does is to give the public a greater appreciation of what goes into making a movie and making it well.
The main thing I’m grateful for is I learned to write a score in my head without needing the computer tools. That said, I love all this technology. The fact that you can communicate with your client; in the ’70s all you could do was invite the client over, play it on a piano, and say “There are French horns here,” and so on. I like mocking it up, it’s part of the compositional process for me.

It appears you got your chops first, then got into the technology. A lot of project studio people may be doing things the other way around.
This is where I think university education in music is important. I dropped out of university and I’ve studied on my own, developed my own resources, and my own techniques. I think that would be dangerous now, however I’ll preface that by saying that if someone has a strong and inventive mind and great creative thrust, they’re going to be hungry for information. If they’re not getting it from a university, they’ll get it from somewhere. Techniques in the end are mental tools that ultimately require some kind of physical action, whether it be scribbling on a piece of paper or learning to organize your ideas on a computer. The mind and the passion needs to be there.

Do you find that over time there’s been an increasing lack of respect for the traditional, whether it be the power of an orchestra or just use of older instruments?
That’s exactly right. Seeing and hearing is believing. I have a Hammond B-3 plug-in for Logic, and you know, for writing it’s great. In 2000 I did a score that featured a lot of B-3 on it, so I hired the real thing and played it myself. And I thought, “Is this a wank, am I wasting my time?” Within the first five minutes of recording, I thought, “No, this was a great idea.” If it’s a serious texture you want to feature, you can’t beat the real thing.

When spotting a picture, do you have your own specific process?
I like to record the spotting session, the same way we’re recording this interview: Point a camera at the picture and record the conversation. When the film pauses, you see the conversation. You have your spotting notes. On Aquamarine we had two music editors and the music supervisor had created the cue sheets before I’d even started writing. So we watched the film and we’d would stop and talk about what it needed. So I had a QuickTime movie of that entire session on my laptop next to me all the time while I worked. When I’d work on the next cue, I’d go to that part of the movie, watch it a few times and listen to the discussion with the director. I used to take notes on paper, but I missed so much detail and the nuances of what the director wanted. With this process I know exactly where the director wants the music to come in, and when they want it out. If I’m not sure on something during the spotting session, I’ll ask the director to pause the movie — and on my recording I can see the timecode.
If I’m stuck for ideas when writing, I’ll replay the spotting session and listen for the mood of the director’s voice. That way I’ll get all new clues as to how they really feel about that scene. If there’s temp music there, does the director really love it? If so, I have to do something that’s similar but completely different. All those tiny minutes of improvement add up to a better movie. The music cements the illusion of the movie being a continuous event, not a series of edited shots.

With the temp music, do you find it a common battle where a director is married to the temp music and you’re having to fight to get your music to replace it?
I think the truth of it is that they’re often married to it because it’s the closest thing they’ve got to making their film feel like a real film. They’re married to it until you come up with something that blows it away. Sometimes that thing will have similar instrumentation, sometimes it will be completely different instrumentation and tempo. You’ve got to know when to be bold, take them by the hand and say “walk this way.” You’ve got to be prepared for them to say, “No,” and go back to where you were. I find it an enjoyably perverse game. I used to really hate it when I tried to go away from the temp and they wanted to stay with it. Now, I find it enjoyable. I think the key is having a strong voice in your own melody. Once you’ve got that, it can be buffeted around by the most unlikely stylistic variations that I’d not normally do. Sometimes I like what the temp does to my composing. Some composers won’t listen to the temp music, but I like to. It’s a useful tool I embrace rather than fight. Aquamarine had a lot of temp on it, and was some of the most highly engineered I’d ever heard. It was really inspiring in itself. I then just came up with a few themes and allowed them to be buffeted around on this stylistic roller-coaster ride.

Once you’ve spotted the film, how do you approach it from a compositional viewpoint? Are you inclined to develop some themes and expand them, or approach it in a linear way?
Some films are linear and you find the themes develop out of a linear process of telling the story. The first three of four minutes are always the most challenging, so you’ve got to be prepared to write that section many times, for no other reason than it can be re-cut right up until the last minute, and that’s the mood setting. I find in the first ten to 15 minutes that I’ve established a palette of ideas that frames the film and captures its personality. Once you’ve discovered that, melodies develop spontaneously. I’m often asked to develop themes for particular characters. It sounds contrived, a theme for everyone, but the reality is the music arcs through it all. You weave these melodic motifs through the mood of the shots, the tempo of the visual narrative, getting out of the way of dialogue. Sometimes the amount of dialogue will influence how busy a melody can be. I always pray they don’t use too much ADR. Sometimes I’ve composed music that’s in the same key as what their speech patterns are. [Laughs.]
For Aquamarine there was a friendship theme I recorded one morning. I just turned my laptop on, used QuickTime Pro for recording like you’re using. I just turned it on and recorded straight from the Bosendorfer just to get that connection with the simplicity of it. Then I orchestrated that out and developed it into different moods.

What are common creative hurdles you find you have to jump when working on a film?
I went through a period where it was really difficult to move forward. I’d get stuck on an idea. So I started walking lots, getting out of this room. Once upon a time I’d sit here and not allow myself to move until I’d written something. When you first start on a film and you have weeks, or even months, before your deadline, that’s when it’s dangerous because you know you’ve got this huge wall of stuff to write and you haven’t climbed it. Sometimes it’s as simple as saying, “I’m just going to start.” The simplest idea, which you could easily dismiss can sometimes be the best thing. Writer’s block is a self-fulfilling cycle of fear and doom. When I was a young guy I used to get plagued by that sometimes, although the fear can get to a stage that it becomes a motivator. I remember once in Shine the director asked me to rewrite one of the main themes two days before the recording session, and it was a theme that recurred throughout the movie. With that fear I just sat down and something popped straight out, even though I was terrified.
When you’re coasting along and want to enjoy your life without the terror of the deadline, I think the best way is to start as early as you can and don’t be afraid to have to do it again. I don’t get over-excited anymore when I’m coming up with an idea, but I get deeply satisfied when I know I’ve found it.

So how important are your surroundings in that process?
I do things like lighting an incense burner, having a bit of a view, and being surrounded with instruments that are friendly. It’s sort of like having a date with yourself. You’ve got to romance yourself and feel good about what you’re doing. If you’ve turned up here for your date with yourself and you’re not feeling comfortable, you’re a bit awkward, don’t hang around too long. Go away, have a walk. That’s when the ideas happen, in the subconscious. You’ve just got to let the ego get out of the way.

Some sportspeople have rituals they complete before they go out to play.
Rituals are good. Sitting at a piano is one I do. I just start playing a few notes, I might play a few chords, let them roll over me, then before I know it, it’s all coming down like a demon and I’m thinking ‘how am I doing this?’ and I realise that’s what music is like - allowing it to flow then capturing it. And these tools make capturing it fun.

Which composers have influenced or inspired you over the years?
I really like Thomas Newman. Henry Mancini is someone else I really like as a writer. John Williams is phenomenal. I know everyone thinks of his Wagnerian moments in films like Star Wars, but then you hear what he does on films like Memoirs of a Geisha, which was a stunning score. For different reasons I’ve really enjoyed some of Danny Elfman’s work, it’s very inspiring. Regardless of style or content, it’s the attitude behind the music that I like. One of my favorite scores is still Ben Hur, which was by Miklos Rozsa. It’s phenomenal, very moving.

If you could sum up what you’d say to an aspiring composer, what would it be?
Open your mind to things. If you’re closed you’ll be stagnant because you’re focused on one style of composing. Just be really open.