Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

When you're talking with directors and listening

to directors-- because if you're smart,

you're really doing more listening than talking,

because you really want to hear what they have to say.

You really want to do it with illustrating,

because some directors have a really

kind of deep musical knowledge, and some

know nothing about music.

Of course, I always hope for the directors

that know nothing about music.

It's much easier to communicate, because if they

have been to Juilliard, if they've studied music,

it doesn't mean shit when they're telling you

about music that doesn't exist.

It's still all subjective.

You're talking about music that does this and music that does--

and if they start talking about a specific style of music

or composition, most likely they're

leading you down a rabbit hole that's going to go nowhere.

And you're going to end up doing that,

and then having them go, no, no, that's not what I mean.

I meant like this.

All that really matters is you listen to their feeling.

How do they feel about it?

And that needs no musical sensibility.

How do they feel?

Your job is to translate their feelings about their movie

into music.

And the directors I have with a vast musical knowledge

or with deeper musical knowledge tend to be actually

more difficult. Warren Beatty comes to mind,

because he's actually a musician,

and he could play piano, and he could talk about a scale, talk

about playing it in this key versus that key.

I usually-- you know, I've had half a dozen directors

who can talk that way, and I just listen to them.

But when they talk about keys and stuff like that,

it doesn't mean anything to me.

You know, when it--

when somebody starts talking about this

should be in such and such a key,

because such an key feels that way, that's bullshit.

And when classical reviewers are talking

about a composer composing in a certain key,

that's also bullshit.

I mean, there is no key that feels sad,

and there's no key that feels happy.

You can turn any key into anything you want.

So ideally, the director is not giving you

very specific musical notation ideas, but if they do,

you've got to listen, be respectful, and try

to understand the gist of what they're saying.

But then get down to what you really care about,

is what's going to make them feel what I want

them to feel at this moment.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Very important-- your first meetings with the director,

and especially when you're playing the director

music for the first time.

It's like, in this moment, you have to find a balance.

You have to reach deep inside of yourself.

It's-- you have to make the director feel several things.

One is that you're calm and in control of the situation.

Two, very important, you have--

they have to feel that you're listening to them,

that you're really listening.

And then when they have questions for you,

you don't want to get defensive and start

getting nervous and trying to come up with answers that

feel phony, and you don't want your sense of listening

to them feeling phony either.

You really want to try to hear what they're

saying because people will pick up

on your bullshit at this point.

And so you don't know what you're going to find,

so you want to be open, and that's the key word,

is like, they're going to express, how

about this, how about that.

No matter what it sounds like, just

be open to what they're saying, because when they leave,

that's the first thing you're going to be doing, is like,

how do I apply what they just said to what I'm doing?

And it's not an easy thing.

You're going to find a way to apply it.

Hopefully, if you're-- you have a sound,

you have something that you feel is you,

you're going to try to find how it applies through your sound,

and you're not going to be imitative.

[INAUDIBLE] go, oh, they want this.

I'm just going to give them that.

and then they're going to come back and go,

well, no, OK, I asked for this, but not on the nose

literally just in the way that I've

heard many times before this.

You want to try to find a way to make it your own version,

but in what you're going to play them the second time they

come is still, clearly to them, acknowledging their thoughts.

And they might go, oh, yeah, that's working a lot better.

And they might go, for example, I

can hear that you're coming into this zone,

but this part here, I still have a problem with.

But you're making progress, because now, they're like,

OK, this is better, this is better,

but when I get to this section, you're losing me.

And that's a good thing, because now, you've

made progress with this piece of music,

and now, your job is to go, what is it about this section that

isn't working for them?

And it can be anything.

I mean, I've had moments with the director

where I'm almost ready to rewrite

a whole section of a thing, and then

I just change the instrumentation,

and I lost the trumpet.

And the director comes in-- oh, my god, that's so much better,

and I'm sitting there--

I'm so glad that I didn't rewrite it

because it really was just a sound that was bothering them.

The way I see it is like this--

you've all been, or most of you, to an optometrist's office,

and in the optometrist's office, they're presenting you--

if you've ever had glasses, as you know, they're going to go,

which looks better--

number one or number two?

You go, number two, and then they go switch,

switch, switch, switch.

Now, which looks better-- number one or number two?

And you go, one more time.

Number one or number two?

Number two's a little sharper.

Switch, switch, switch, switch, switch,

and you-- they work their way into your prescription.

And sometimes, I feel it's the same with directors and music

and presentations.

So it's better to do a little too much and to be prepared,

because you don't want to come out of a meeting with just,

no, nothing's working.

I'm still back to the drawing board.

You want to come away with at least,

this is working better than this.

All right, it's given me a clue, a road

to try to aim and focus myself down.

So you want to get something out of a meeting that's positive.

You know, unless it just--

it isn't.

But you want to find some way to do that, so in my technique,

or how I work, is to try to provide options,

because very often, I don't even know myself how I feel.

I have three ways I'm playing something, and I like them all.

And I want the director to say, that, number two, and that's

actually part of the fun of it as well.