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The piano we built
for this movie "The Homesman",

the problem with this is that
it's out in the elements,

and it disintegrates.

But I think it's
a noble death for a piano.

The wind is a big feature
in the movie

and we thought that it'd be great
to be able to tune the wind.

It sounds really amazing.

This is part of the fun
of experimenting.

You know, you figure
this stuff out.

One interesting thing
that happens

is the sound travels
through the wire

faster than it travels
through the air,

so you get this reverse echo,
which is really cool.

You don't even have to put
any effect on the sound at all.

I mean, you can hear it
all the way down in the valley.

It's more than just the concept
of doing something cool

that nobody's done before.
It's more fun.

Samurai's death here,
on the hill.

When you hear "Rocky"...

Everybody in the audience
knows what's going on.

The composer
is a storyteller.

Music has the ability
to shape and in some cases alter

or even subvert what
the filmmaker is communicating.

The score is the heart
and the soul of the film.

Film music can make an
exciting scene more exciting.

We call it
"emotion lotion",

because we can make you feel
anything we want you to feel.

It's being able
to communicate on a level

that they can't
tell in pictures.

Great film music can elevate.

music has always been

a part of the cinema-going
experience,

as far back as 1895
when the lumière brothers

were experimenting
in Paris.

In the earliest days,
it is true,

music was thought of
as something

to cover up the noise
of the projector.

Silent films were never silent.

There was at least a pianist
in the smallest nickelodeons,

and sometimes the bridge between
them was a theatre organ.

There were many
theatre organ makers,

but the one that
produced the most organs,

and is thought to be
probably the best

is the name wurlitzer.

They showed how a person
could bring to life

the movies that were
otherwise quiet.

They either did a score
that was printed for them,

or they improvised
and created their own.

They were made part
of the moviegoing experience.

A number of people had toyed

with the idea of scores
in Hollywood.

Max Steiner's score
for "King Kong" in 1933

was a landmark.

When "King Kong" came out,

"Wait a second.
Orchestra music in a movie?"

the only reason
he was able to do it

is because
the movie wasn't scary.

It looked kitschy and stupid,

because it was so...
It was kitschy and stupid.

But then he put that music in.

It completely changed the movie.
It made it frightening.

People had not done
that before.

It was really
the first major score

that demonstrated conclusively
the power of music in film.

Alfred Newman came
from new haven, Connecticut,

an iconic figure
in the history of film music.

A sound that favors horns
and woodwinds.

My father was Alfred Newman.

In 1930, he came to L.A.

He was at 20th century fox
for 20 years.

The fox logo... arguably the most
famous logo ever written...

It wasn't written for fox, it was written
for goldwyn and it was rejected.

And then he used it for fox
and Darryl zanuck loved it.

There was nothing like that orchestra.
I'm talking about rubato.

It means "slowing down and
speeding up in an expressive way".

You would never read
a line of text like,

"I went to the market today."

"I went to the market today."

You'd have a... you'd have
a structure of a phrase.

That is so uber important
in music.

They became expert
at making that musical.

That helped define what we know
as the classic Hollywood sound.

A spotting session
is the first time

we all get together,
look at the movie,

and decide where
the music's gonna go,

and what type of music
it's going to be.

All movies,
the first 20 minutes

are too slow
because we're laying pipe.

So we want the music
to be something but not crazy.

The goal of a spotting session
is to have a dialogue

with the composer that you've
probably been postponing.

I've done my work,
I've done my design,

I've cast the movie,
I've shot it.

We've done all our beautiful
photography,

we've done all
our super-brilliant editing.

Now it's going through
and trying to communicate

what I've heard in my mind.

Ah, mothers.

Mothers are our rocks.

So it says
"open road pictures",

then we're going to cut
to possibly not the front door

but a shot
before the front door

- that establishes the house.
- Got it.

Spotting, to me,
is really important

because it gives me an idea of
what the director's looking at

and what he's looking for.

- Something that's peppy right away...
- Peppy, yep.

And then we come here
and we slow down.

Kind of settle on that.

You're collaborating
with people.

I want them to feel
like a filmmaker like them

has come into the process.

I'm the one
that specializes in

this one thing that they're
uncomfortable with.

You're trying
to come up with music

that supports the scene and
complements it in an unobtrusive way.

You spend as much time
as you can

immersing yourself
in the backstory.

As a film composer,

you're part
of the storytelling team.

Do you want to spin
forward to the next cue, garry?

- Yeah.
- This one sort of

ends when she comes
around the corner, right?

I try to get a sense
of what their insecurities are.

The more time
you spend with them,

the more you get
those answers.

Most directors don't know
how to convert emotions

into musical... into music.

So the composer has to kind
of act almost like a therapist

and go through
all this mishmash

of what the director's saying
and get the essence of it.

What if we kind of
tail right into that?

- Yeah, right, you don't need to go...
- Right?

- Don't score him?
- Maybe don't score...

Just put a nice little
transition, garry,

that kind of
just spills over.

- And then he comes up.
- Yeah.

Something like that
maybe? Yeah.

We got the...
We got the gist of it.

Sort of in that first
conversation with the director

I have glimpses of
what it could be.

Every project starts
roughly the same way.

Somebody comes into the room
and says, "I've got this idea.

It'll be fun to do.
It'll be a fun adventure", etc.

And they tell you the idea and you
get drawn in and you get excited.

And you're flattered that
they're even considering you.

"Whoa, me", you know.
"I get to go on this ride".

And then they leave the room and then
you have a moment of reflection.

You go, "I have no idea
how to do this.

Oh, my god."

And then after a while
you think

should you be phoning them
and saying,

you know, "Hey, I think you
better phone John Williams.

I have no idea
how to do this."

You know, the blank page
is always the blank page.

Plus, I have no idea
where music comes from.

So there's always the fear that
somebody's going to switch off the tap.

This is a film called "Race."

I've been working on it for
a week, so I'm just beginning.

I'm just sort of getting
into my process with it.

Where I'm thinking it should
start is... is just coming up.

And I'm going to start with it
coming in really, really quietly.

No.

Well, why not?

You want to win a gold medal?

- Sure.
- You want to do it in Berlin?

Well, I mean, unless you were
planning on waiting...

There's a change of direction
in the scene.

And that's often a prompt
for where music will come in.

Well,
they don't care for 'em much

here in Columbus, either.

Is that gonna
be problem?

No sir.

I just came here to run.

Well then, for
the next 28 months,

you're either in a classroom,
or you're on that track,

every hour, every day.

As a composer,

when you're sitting there
watching a film,

it's not like watching
a play or real life.

There's camera positions,
there's cuts.

It's an incredibly artificial
medium in a way,

and it's really nothing
like real life.

We have to find clever ways
to introduce something familiar.

A motif
is a group of notes

that might highlight
what a film score is.

A good example
would be "Close encounters."

Beethoven was
one the first composers

to really take a theme or motif
and spin it out in a huge way.

Beethoven's
"fifth symphony,"

the entire piece is based
on that ya-ta-ta-ta rhythm.

Simple hooks,
just like a pop song.

But you're then casting them
in different lights.

By using motifs,

it helps you to understand
the relationships in the story.

Dear bilbo.

When you hear a certain
motif, you connect it.

And it actually helped you
follow the story.

Nine companions.

By the time you get
to the end of the film,

when you play that music
in its full glory,

it's already familiar
to the audience.

We're kind of building things
up to that main course.

The director
is not a huge fan

of strictly orchestral
elements,

so we're exploring.

In here, this is buck.

He's working on a movie now
called "the gunman"

that we're working on
together.

We're a little bit
under the gun,

and that's
nerve-racking.

One of the things
we were working at was

processing these kalimbas.

It's a simple African
instrument.

The next week
we'll be here quite a bit.

I'm pretty relaxed about it.

Buck's not.

There's a lot of work to do.

That's the kalimba
you hear.

He's following a mystery
to find out what's happened.

The music needs to have
a bit of intrigue.

I think we cracked the puzzle
on this pretty quick.

As film grew up,
in terms of the subject

that they were tackling
and what the filmmakers

themselves were seeking,
film music itself changed.

It became more modern in style.
It embraced jazz.

"A streetcar named desire" was
Alex north's first film score.

And he comes in with a history
of having written ballets

and concert works
in New York

and tackles his first film
assignment,

and writes the most
revolutionary score of all time.

The first film score
incorporating jazz

in the writing structure.

Jerry goldsmith said when he heard
the score for the first time,

he knew that film music
had changed

and would never be the same.

Bond. James Bond.

John Barry came from
his own band,

performing music that sounded
like early James Bond music.

By the time he wrote
James Bond music,

he was bringing a band
sensibility to movies.

Thing about big band music,
it was cool.

And it swung.

Felt like this was a guy
who could do anything.

You will not hear any film, which is
to do with spying or secret services

without
a reference to bond.

I mean, it's become
the thing to go to,

in the same way that morricone
was for spaghetti westerns.

Ennio morricone.

He's not going
to hit you with music

that makes you go,
"whoa, what is that instrument?

Whoa, how did he make
that sound?"

But what he will do is
just kill you with a melody.

"The good, the bad
and the ugly"

is such an iconic piece
of music.

You know, he just took
that sound of the guitar

and just put it into
that western environment.

That is the sound of,
you know, spaghetti westerns,

still, 50, 60 years
after the fact.

And I think that's quite
an achievement.

By the 1960s,
you had this great period,

where you had incredibly
well-trained musicians.

Bernard Herrmann had come out
of dramatic radio.

And his ability
to take a sound,

and create a specific kind
of unique orchestra

that was specific to each film
was groundbreaking.

["Vertigo" theme music)

the main title from vertigo,

that is the textbook
perfect example

of the score that says "mystery,
something's not right here.

Stay away, but please come.
Come running."

That was different than other
writers at the time.

These are not melodic ideas.
These are little phrases

that had circular
madness to them,

that worked really well
in Alfred Hitchcock movies.

It felt like everything's
driving forward in a sick,

inevitably disastrous way.

Bernard Herrmann,
he had balls.

So just to do what he did with
"psycho" in the shower scene.

Without the music,
it's not that scary.

You notice the cuts,
you notice the process.

As soon as you put
the music there...

You're stuck in the mindset
of this psychotic killer.

Outside of the context
of that movie,

people probably just wonder,

"what the hell is the noise?
Turn it off."

But it was so effective
in that moment.

It really tricked you into
believing you saw way more

of the violent act in
that scene than really occurred.

When you read a book,
and it says

"there is this great forest,"
everybody pictures a forest.

None of these forests
will be the same.

It's exactly the same
with music.

You can ask 15 other composers
to read that same script,

they will all have different
musical ideas.

One of the things that I find
so liberating about film music

is the fact
that any instrument is valid,

as long as it makes
the movie better.

I have about five
storage areas

that are all filled
with musical equipment.

At a certain point,
I collect enough stuff

that when it starts to look
like a junk store,

then the people here do an
intervention and they take everything.

They scrape it clean, and I just
start over collecting things again.

It was a piano
something like that.

I bought it at a toy store
at the Beverly center,

and I played the theme song
for "rugrats,"

because I thought I'd never need
to play the toy piano again.

It was like $60 bucks.
I thought, "what a lot of money

to spend on a toy piano."

So I bought it, brought it
to my studio, and recorded it.

Then I took it back
and got my money back.

And now I always wonder,
where is that toy piano

that I wrote the theme song
for "rugrats" on?

Many times I start the cue from playing
other things, not the computer.

These are tuned sleigh bells.
They're very rare.

There's music in everything.
I'll be taking an elevator.

You'll be in the thing
and then all of a sudden

the door will be like.

And you're just like,
"what was that, man?

That was cool, you know?"
And you come back to the studio

and try to recreate that sound.

What would that sound
like in musical form?

So I'm always trying to distill what
the world sounds like into music.

There is no such thing as
the wrong way to do something.

You just got to keep trying,
and the wrong way

is the wrong way,
until it's the right way.

It's a bit of a dinosaur
in that it went extinct

and gave birth to the violin,
and the guitar,

and a lot of other things. The
construction's pretty simple.

You have two drones, and in
this case, one melodic string.

It's kind of suggestive
looking, at least.

They sound kind of like when
a seal plays musical horns

in a circus or something.

I haven't played
that for years.

Now that I've got the groove,
I can imagine

like what could be
a melody on top, right?

It's a paradise.

I try to find a general
rhythm in a scene.

"Mad Max," I spent at least seven
months producing the score.

Trying this, trying that.

Different types of drums.

The drums that were
uniquely recorded

for "mad Max"
just playing one.

If you combine all these
multiple tracks together,

then you can get a really,
really interesting quality

of these drums
playing together

and they're pretty aggressive,
which I'm a big fan of.

That actually makes, you know,
quite a difference.

Some directors
want the music

to constantly
hit the shots.

Other directors want really
long pieces of music

that go over multiple,
multiple shots at the same time.

These are things that you
constantly struggle with

when you work to picture.

I don't care what music it is,
but if I make a track,

it has to give me
goosebumps, myself.

I don't say that
to be arrogant,

but if it doesn't hit me
in the stomach

as being
a great piece of music,

I cannot expect the audience,
anybody out there,

to have the feeling
that it hits the stomach.

If it gives me goosebumps,
it's pretty likely

it'll give someone else
goosebumps,

because I think goosebumps come
for everyone from similar places.

When we're looking
at emotion,

and other kinds
of responses to music,

there are many structures
in the brain that are involved.

Music is so multifaceted,
it's so multidimensional.

Different aspects of music
are processed

by different systems
in the brain.

So when you're looking
at something,

like melody and pitch,

that's processed
by one system in the brain.

When you're looking at the time-based
aspects like tempo and rhythm,

that's processed
by another system.

We are having some sort
of a physiological response

that the body is showing,
and the goosebumps

is actually just a sign of what's
happening inside your body.

There's a system in the brain,
ventral striatum

and nucleus accumbens,
in particular,

it's our reward center.

Things like chocolate or sex,
these are reactions

that we can see
involve these structures.

So it's interesting because the
same kinds of pleasurable feelings

we get from chocolate,
dopamine release,

we could see some of the same kind of
activations in the brain to music.

It's the one art form
that technically doesn't exist.

You can touch musical
instruments,

you can touch cds or cassettes
or vinyl that contain the music,

but you can never actually
put your finger on music.

It's just air moving
a little bit differently.

All music is doing is providing some
structure to these air molecules.

So if a truck goes by,

it's pushing air molecules
against our inner ear.

If someone's playing cello,

it's pushing the exact same
air molecules against our ear,

just in a different,
structured way.

And there's something odd

but really, really interesting
and powerful about that.

But they'll never take
our freedom!

It makes armies march
into battle.

It makes people cry.

It can really increase
the overall emotion

in a way that will make
a movie stay with its audience

long after the last
frame of film.

We are doing something here.

We're harnessing something
from the ether.

Film music, and orchestral
music in general,

is of great interest
to neuroscientists

and to scientists because of
its great power to emote.

Film music is usually
something that

we're not paying conscious
attention to,

and yet it has such
a powerful impact on us.

"Remember the titans,"
the music for me

was written
so specifically for that.

It's very interesting about
using music in film,

it's providing a very specific
context for the music.

There is a permanent linkage,
so when you hear it again,

the experiences you had
in the theatre are evoked.

I never even thought about whether
it could be used elsewhere.

Thank you.
God bless you

and may god bless
the United States of America.

The phone rang.

A friend of mine said,
"I'm at the convention.

'Remember the titans' is playing
as loud as a kiss concert."

I wasn't asked,
which I'm not happy about,

but, it's quite interesting
watching it being used

for something completely
different.

We live in a world that
things are underscored.

It's actually interesting
how the music

of "remember the titans"
evokes what Obama wanted

to be as the man walking out
as the new president.

Whatever the audience
felt in the theatre,

it was resonant again.

The power of the score
in and of itself is amazing.

When we're watching
a 90-minute standard film,

we make about 21,000 or more
eye movements.

And even though we feel
like we have full control

and freedom of where to look,
many studies on eye tracking

have shown that actually
a film audience

is usually looking at about
the same place on a screen

at about the same time.

One way that the eye can be
directed to a specific spot

on the screen is when there's
something about the music

that matches some characteristic
on the screen.

For example, a rising pitch
with something that is rising.

And a great example
of this comes from

the "married life" montage
from the film, "up."

the first time
that we see the balloons

that are tied
to Carl's cart,

that's really important
because the balloons are going

to be an important
visual motif,

an important theme
for the entire film.

We see Carl, and then we see
Ellie walking out with a parrot.

And then the balloon cart
rises and comes back down.

So it's very
interesting to see

that music can be part of
the choreography of the dance

of our eye movements
during a film sequence.

It used to be
representative scoring,

where everything you see,
you hear.

Walk up the steps.

Romantic kiss.

The eye's doing the same thing
the ear's doing.

There's so many decisions
to make in movies.

Hollywood was going through
an odd transition in the '60s,

especially the mid-'60s
to the early '70s.

One of the things that got
thrown out was the idea

of the old-fashioned
orchestral score.

now there was a movement
toward source music.

folk music...

Intimate types
of musical groupings...

it was just different.
The '60s were a lot

of composers who really knew
what they were doing,

who didn't want to do
it the old way.

Jerry goldsmith was absolutely
the most innovative composer

to work on mainstream movies
on a regular basis.

What's amazing
about "planet of the apes"

is he's using all
these modern techniques.

He reapplied it
and put it into drama.

Metal mixing bowls and rubber
balls being bounced into a bowl.

Just kind of screwing with
the orchestra the way he did

and just being so ballsy
in his choices

and it being so on point
for that movie.

It'll always be
one of the all-time great

science fiction scores.

"Chinatown" was written
in 10 days after

an earlier score had been written,
recorded, and thrown out.

And it's very interesting
that Jerry comes in

and he looks at the film,

and he immediately decides he
needs four harps, four pianos,

strings, percussion,
and a solo trumpet.

Why four pianos?

I mean, Jerry was just sort of the
godfather of all this, wasn't he?

It's such an interesting musical
choice, but that's Jerry.

You ask musicians, they might
think he is the best ever.

When I heard "the reivers,"
I said, "my god, this guy

- must be 80 years old.
- " I really thought... -Nearly!

I thought maybe here's
some guy who's 80 years old

who maybe wrote his greatest
scores of his life.

And I wanted to find out
who this guy was,

and I met this young man named
John Williams and I was amazed.

John Williams did not start
as a classical composer,

he started as a jazz pianist.

John Williams played piano
on "West Side story."

And he played piano
on "the apartment."

Born and bred
in the fox system,

him and Jerry goldsmith,
that's where they learned.

Nobody knew that the whole
field would change.

When we saw "jaws,"

if it didn't have
that "ba-domp ba-domp",

none of us would have known
what was happening.

it was pretty brilliant.

And it was almost like
a crazy experiment.

He was an engine, "ba-dum,
ba-dum," accelerating.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

Like a train moving forward,
this is an eating machine.

He is as simple as
"I move forward to kill."

That shark didn't need more.
He needed two notes.

The first day with
Steven, he said,

"what are you going
to play for jaws?" I went...

He said, "you're kidding."

I said, "you're crazy,
this is a serious movie!"

I thought he was going to say,
"no, I'm only kidding."

And he was about to play this
very poetic pastoral symphony.

And John said, "no, no, you've
made a very primal movie."

Part of the genius
of John Williams

is how he spots music

and how he
places music in a movie.

John did not want music
to celebrate a red herring.

He only wanted music to signal
the actual arrival of the shark.

Everybody goes, "oh, 'jaws',
it's just these two notes."

It's not. There's this amazing
orchestral symphonic piece

that takes place and it's just being
triggered by these two notes.

Just artistic imagination
is phenomenal.

We are not worthy.

I said, "oh my god.
It's a rebirth.

Film music is back,
it's alive!"

"Star wars" made such an incredible
splash when it came out.

Everything about it was
so exciting and thrilling

for an 11-year-old growing up
at that time.

Here they come.

And spoke to a whole
generation of people.

I was, I think 12 when
that thing came out.

So it had a massive
impact on my youth.

We had the theme from "star wars"
locked in our head as a kid,

as soon as we walked out
of that theatre.

Musically, yes,
it is a symphonic score.

But I mean, it's one of the greatest
scores probably ever written.

It's impossible to think of "star
wars" without Williams' music.

The score he did
helped the audience

rediscover the classical
orchestral film score.

Spielberg and Lucas
can lay claim to many things,

and one of them is helping
to reintroduce audiences

to that kind of
moviegoing experience.

Star wars turned
this shit upside down.

It was John Williams
that made me,

first of all, realize
that film music could be

of a quality and distinction
that is as great

as any of the classical
composers I grew up with.

There's the traditional
idea of good and bad,

and how they were
exemplified in music.

I like to always go
to "star wars,"

because there's those beautiful
themes, John's main theme,

and then there is
the love theme.

But then there's
the Darth Vader theme.

it's just so martial
and so broad

that you go, "oh boy, there's
something not good here."

the right score for the right
movie at the right time.

That '70s era, that is absolutely
the era of John Williams.

Without his music, superman's
powers are greatly diminished.

Believe me, if you try
to fly without that theme,

you go nowhere.
One step, two steps and down.

Everyone knows
the superman theme,

but the Krypton theme
that comes right before it...

That overture, it's mysterious,
it's almost like avant-garde.

That sets up this really tuneful
double-chorus melody.

Almost makes it, to me,
10 times more the piece.

So it's his way of surrounding
pieces with other pieces.

Most of the world,
if you were to play the music

from "jaws," or "star wars,"
or "raiders of the lost ark,"

most folks would know
exactly what that was.

"Raiders of the lost ark."

If you hear the melody
without the rhythm,

you can recognize it.

But if you just to the rhythm,

with no melody you recognize it
either way.

Very simple
little sequence of notes.

But I spend more time on those
little bits of musical grammar

to get them just right
so that they seem inevitable.

There's a hooky, tuneful,
well-orchestrated theme,

but I think
that's only half of it.

There's always the bravura part
of the John Williams composition.

The first 8, 16, 32 bars. The great
"raiders of the lost ark" theme.

And then comes the b part.

It's less well known,
but it's so beautifully crafted.

I always think that's the part
he writes for himself.

I think he's as brilliant
as people feel he is.

And as popular as his music is,
he's even better than that.

If it would be convenient
to go into the call.

Yeah.

I like that.
As a matter of fact,

it seems like
a very natural transition.

- Up or down?
- Up.

Maybe once down.

It could go down once
and then go up.

What a score needs
to do has changed,

because of how filmmaking
has changed.

Let's take John Williams,
let's take the end of "e.T."

Where are we going?

To the forest!

It is just a wide open
space for music.

Follow me!

When was the last time
that somebody left a space

that open and said, "I want
this to be a music moment

where you just bring
that tune home."

I'll be right here.

Bye.

We have this vast,
expansive music

with the taking off
of the spaceship.

John Williams,
Steven Spielberg decide

that we're gonna go
from big music to,

reminding us who is going
into that spaceship.

We could look at what is happening
in the story as being very sad,

these are farewells.

And at the very end
we hear this coda,

this fanfare
that's very triumphant.

That is saying that we're looking
at this from Elliot's viewpoint.

That it's not a loss,
but it's almost like saying,

"mission accomplished.
We got e.T. Home."

In the orchestra,
one of the things we love

is the 10-minute break.

But on tens, when you have been
inspired by the music,

there's an electricity.

On "Jurassic park,"

you could tell by the look
in your colleague's eyes

that you were
not mistaken,

that you had just played something that
was going to almost live eternally.

Almost anything we do
with John Williams is...

We know it's going
to be unbelievable.

We always leave
the sessions like feeling,

"why can't all
the sessions be like this?"

A lot of the time
you'll pick a studio

because it's appropriate to the sort
of sound that you want to make.

It used to be a church,
obviously.

It's a building that's been here
for a couple hundred years.

You know, it's a church, and I suppose everyone
thinks that all churches are haunted somehow.

We have had engineers who've been in
here who've just seen that happen.

You know, chairs just
start spinning around.

It would be a great way to
excuse yourself, wouldn't it?

If you've made
a terrible mistake.

"It was the ghost that did
that." But no, you know,

all the terrible things that happen
here are always based on people.

Usually me.

I've sort of lived in this
building since about 1994.

- Morning.
- Hi, David.

It was pretty derelict when
George Martin in the late '80s

sort of came upon it and decided
this would be the place

to convert
into a studio.

If you've ever been in a small room with
a gang of people and shouted a lot,

it sort of chokes
the room out.

You know, so you can't
really hear anything

because the sound
has got nowhere to go

so everything
piles in on itself?

That's the same
in an acoustic space.

If we have 110 people
in a room,

we've got this
moveable roof panel.

You lift the roof up and it gives you
an extra second and a half of reverb

and so, you know, the sound
can sort of swim around

this gorgeous space with all these
amazing reflective surfaces.

We use up to 100 mics
on a session.

That all gives you the choice
as to how close or how far away

you want to feel
from the music.

It's a very different
acoustic to Abbey road.

86 players total today.

So it's a good size
orchestra.

We're here in Abbey road
studio number one,

which is the big orchestral
room at Abbey road.

Check, check,
one, two, three, test.

Check,
one, two, three.

There doesn't appear to be a great deal
of absorbent material on the walls,

so it still has a bit
of a live sound to it.

When the orchestra
cuts off

you get a really
great bit of reverb.

The Beatles recorded their
orchestral stuff in here,

and then in the '80s it became
frequently used for film scores,

so "return of the jedi"
was mostly recorded here.

Chorus people, thank you
for coming.

Welcome to this process
of making "star wars."

the "star wars" prequels
were recorded here.

Just winds, please. 33.

One, two, three.

The first three "lord of the
rings" movies were recorded here.

I know when Williams
did like his films here,

he tended to set up
over here

and throw this way,
the long way.

So that the choir from like "duel of
the fates" was up against that wall.

Our sound engineer
on this film,

he asked for
this layout,

because he prefers it in terms of
getting the sound that he wants.

When you're
a film composer,

part of the gig is you're giving
the director and the producers

the music they want.

But at the end of the day,
if they don't like it,

it's not in the movie.

My crew in the mixing room
consists of the engineer,

who in this case is
a guy named Casey stone.

He's sitting behind the board and
he's operating all the faders.

He's the one who set up all
the microphones in here,

laid out the plan for how we
were going to record everything.

Next to him is
a gentleman named Louis,

and Louis is operating
the pro tools,

so he's controlling the clicks
that I hear in my headphones,

and that all the musicians
hear in their headphones.

And then he's also
recording all the takes,

making sure they're
all labeled correctly.

There's a gentleman
named John finklea,

he's the music editor.

He is the person who will
take all the takes

and assemble not only the version
that we use in the film,

but also the version that we end up
making the soundtrack album from.

Next to him is
the orchestrator,

who in this film
is Matt dunkley.

I do all my writing
in a computer.

The orchestrator takes that file and
converts it into an orchestral score,

a score that
I can conduct from,

and from which parts can be generated
and given to all the musicians.

And they don't have to see
all the other parts.

Great. Really, really.

Moving on?

Yeah. Ready?

Different cities, different
influences, different rooms.

In London, usually they play
with a gentle sound.

In Los Angeles, they play
with a stronger sound.

I do work very hard.

You know, and I have a team
that also works hard with me.

It takes a lot
to get to this point.

It really is like
your life story,

using the picture
as a vehicle

to show the human
that you are.

That was amazing.

Conducting a score is something
that everybody used to do.

It's not so much that the
composer doesn't have the chops

to go out there and conduct
an orchestra, many of them do.

But it's often more important
for them to be in the booth,

listening to what
the orchestra is playing,

and sitting right there
with the director

to know how the director's
feeling about what he's hearing.

Let it play.

If you speak to John Powell,
or Hans Zimmer,

they'll say they prefer to be in
the control room, not conducting,

because that's where everything's fed
through, they have more control.

I mean, basically, we're
all going after the same thing.

We want
the best result,

the best performance
for the film.

A lot of composers
like to be in the booth,

so that they can be
closer to the director.

But I personally feel I get
the best performance

when I'm conducting
my own music.

Good morning!

This is a film for Paramount.
It's lots of fun.

John has done a great,
oh my god, what a score.

So without further ado,
our composer and conductor,

John debney.

Good morning.

We're gonna start out
with 5m1v3.

Let's make some sound.

One, two. Two.

Good read.
Good read.

Sight-reading musicians,
the studio musicians,

really are
an incredible breed.

Producers or filmmakers,
they say,

"Well, how many days do they
have to rehearse this?"

And I say, "none. That was it.
They never saw it before."

And they go,
"What? What?"

There's a technique
to being able to sight-read,

to being able to congeal
as a section,

as a studio
sight-reading orchestra.

24, we are faster
right away.

When you're writing music,

you're writing a letter
to the performers.

You're giving them a set of instructions
on what they're supposed to do.

And if you do it right,
then it should be a love letter.

And it... you should
show again,

"I know your instrument.
I know who you are."

You have many, many players
trying to play the same note,

but no one can.

Everyone is off by microns
of a percentage,

which gives it
that chorusing effect.

If everything was
consonant and perfect,

Music would...
It would be terrible.

I mean, it would be like putting
auto-tune on etta James.

You know, it just would
take all the soul out of it.

And honestly
that's why we have...

Why orchestras
sound beautiful.

If there's ever a time

where I'm not able
to get on a scoring stage

and work with 90 musicians,
I'll probably do something else.

Working with the live musicians,
that's what I live for.

Standing on the podium,

and giving a downbeat
to a piece of music

that you've spent
a long time crafting.

And hearing it
for the first time,

I guess it's like seeing your child
for the first time being born.

The joy, the emotion
of what that is,

it's really
everything to me.

Pretty darn
good take.

That's the real power
of the orchestra

and I think
that's why...

That's why I think
it'll never disappear.

Certainly it's been transformed and
will continue to be transformed,

but I think
at the heart, um...

It's kinda the most
human element

and the most emotional
element we have.

Let's go from 20
to the end of 48.

This film has
a lot of music.

It's an action film,
it's a tentpole movie,

so they tend to be more
wall-to-wall.

You know, "Jack Reacher"
had about 60 minutes of music.

This has about 110.

You do see the billboards up

before you're finished
doing the film.

You drive
past it thinking,

"but the music's
not written yet."

the scary thing is going down
to the subway in New York

and I'm halfway done and seeing
your name on the poster,

and saying, "oh god,"
you know,

it's... i have a long way to
go in two and a half weeks."

the more expensive
the movies get,

they do let you
know this.

You know, the...
the occasional, you know,

hint gets dropped
by the studio

that you know, everything is riding on
this and you better, you know, whatever.

So this is not necessarily
inspirational,

it's just terrifying.

The complexity of putting
these things together

is immense now,
and the pressure is immense.

Our studio?

We're rolling close to
a half a billion dollar roll

every time we take out
a single movie.

Do you know how much
you have to make?

Every movie that you're making has to be
in the top 20 of all-time box office.

It's insane.

I just think the complexity
of the business overall has...

Has brought a complexity
to the art form.

On the movie "armageddon,"
which I did,

I literally got a clock
from Jerry bruckheimer

with a countdown clock, counting
down to the day we finish,

and that was in front
of me at all times.

Deadlines
can be terrifying.

The schedule on this film
is so accelerated,

it's on a whole other level
of professionality.

It's been about
six hours so far,

we've got another
three hours to go.

So guess what,

six clicks
into bar 29.

Yeah, you should go up
a half step, I think.

This kind of situation
is so expensive,

and so hard
to organize.

But there's always more than
one way to solve a problem.

And you can solve this problem by
changing the music at this cut,

or you can solve it by changing
the music at that cut.

Great.

As filmmaking styles
have changed,

film music itself
has changed.

And as filmmakers have realized
that, over the decades,

um, they've asked
for different things

and gotten
different things.

What happened
in 1978-79?

Somebody flipped on
a synthesizer.

When the synth came in,
actually, punk also happened.

And you have this
incredible new

extroverted musical
intelligence going on.

Danny elfman.
He was a performer.

You know, Tim Burton,
one day he gets to make a movie.

Who's he going
to have score it?

Hey, how about
his favorite band?

Yeah, love oingo boingo.
Who's in oingo boingo?

Who's really
the principal songwriter?

Who's really doing... oh,
it's this guy Danny elfman.

- Bingo-bango!

I was starting to write weird
but elaborate compositions.

I wrote this thing called "the oingo
boingo piano concerto no. 1 and a half."

Without having written that, I never would
have taken "pee wee's big adventure."

Since he was a kid,
more or less,

just a really curious person who's
been amusing himself, you know?

At first it was, you know,
just the antics of oingo boingo,

and then the whole
Tim Burton, pee wee.

There's nothing bland
about Danny.

Thanks a lot, crew.

Danny is the composer

who grabs you by the collar during the
main title of the movie and says,

"I'm about to take you into a world,
and here's what's it's about."

Danny's biggest
strength is

I think he comes up with the most
amazing little short musical ideas

that then become
big musical ideas.

When he fully, like,
exploded with "Batman,"

everyone's mind
was blown.

"Batman", there was only one
template: John Williams,

and we didn't
wanna do that.

Again, I had
nothing to go on.

There was no model
of what kind of chords,

how you do, like, a darker score
that's still fun and has energy.

And I realized what I tried to learn
from Bernard Herrmann years earlier,

which is, there is
only one rule.

There are no rules.

Boo!

He can broach
the big, orchestral world

with the very uber
contemporary world,

and he does it
really seamlessly.

And you can hear his sound,
his personality.

Thomas Newman is
one of those composers

that it's very difficult to sort
of describe what the sound is.

Like Danny Elfman, Thomas has
developed his own sound.

The first score
I worked with him on

was "Shawshank Redemption."

His music is extremely edgy and unique
and he has an unmistakable mark,

it's like a watermark
on anything that he does.

That's a lasting piece
of art, "Shawshank."

My name is Lester Burnham.

When I saw American Beauty,

and I heard
Thomas Newman's first notes

in the first frames of the movie...
I think it's a marimba that you hear.

It absolutely sets
the tone of the film,

puts you a little
off balance,

lets you know that you're
in for a somewhat odd,

offbeat take
on American life.

The great thing
about Thomas Newman

is he's managed to capture
a way of doing uncertainty,

so it's never...
It's never too committed,

but it's musically kind of got
this great character to it.

He will generally,
in a cue,

he'll establish
a key center.

Things will start to weave in and out
around that, around that baseline.

That creates a kind of a texture
that lives behind the orchestra.

When the orchestra comes in,
it becomes part of that texture.

Well, that particular language
just didn't exist.

It was... came out
of Thomas Newman's brain.

Thomas Newman
is Alfred Newman's

youngest son.

Yes, he is
orchestrally trained

and he can write a great
orchestral score,

but sometimes the movies
he was working on

required something
more intimate.

A lot ot times
you can get a mood,

a prevailing mood and just
slap it onto an image

and let it sit
for two minutes.

Everybody rips it off.
Everybody.

And they don't realize.
They don't realize.

They're thinking "this is film
music, this is how I do film music.

This is how
I do that thing."

And of course
it's been imitated and copied,

but he was...

He was there
at that moment

to introduce
something new.

It's so difficult
to sit down

and do that cold emotive
solo piano thing

'cause he's perfected it.

Mtv is going on the air.

What video are they
first gonna play?

A song called,
"video killed the radio star"?

if you look closely, you can see
Hans Zimmer in the background.

Hans brought an unconventional
rock swagger, okay,

to film scoring.

There's a brutality
about the way

that the orchestra plays. There's
a violence, if you will.

An aggression.

There's an intensity about it, an
intensity about how it's written,

an intensity
about how it's played.

The single female voice
of Lisa Gerard in that film,

on top of the visceral power
of the orchestra...

Really had an impact
on the audience.

I will see you again.

But not yet.
Not yet.

We had this idea.
It had to be a woman's voice.

Why do you want a woman's
voice in a gladiator movie?

The next day we came in, and there
was that hand on the wheat field.

And that shot holds
for a minute.

If you have written
that in the script

it wouldn't have even
made it to being shot.

Why would you hold your hand
on the wheat field?

The only way that shot can work
was because of the music,

because of Lisa's voice.

But it sort of gave license
for the rest of the movie

to be a little bit
more poetic

and to be a little bit
more expansive.

It really, I think, elevated
the whole experience,

and it shaped the sound of
Hollywood for years afterwards.

Now we're
in the Hans Zimmer era.

It just looms over everything.

This is why
he's a revolutionary.

Hans took the string section
and made them like a guitar.

They're playing rhythm.

And that's a really
interesting thing.

I don't think anybody
had really done that.

"Pirates."
It's like Led Zeppelin.

It's like freaking led zeppelin
played by an orchestra.

What Hans has certainly done
on "Dark Knight"

is obviously blur this line

between this giant symphonic
sound and electronics

and you're not quite sure where
one ends and the other begins.

The sort of light,
repetitive string ostinatos.

You hear that so often.

It's just all about
this constant pulse going on.

Terribly powerful.

Terribly exciting.

Hans Zimmer is still...
he's a legend and still

becoming more legendary.

The end of Iinception",
it's like a new morning.

When he gets home, he's going
to be reunited with his family

for real, in reality.

You're led in one direction
like it's going to be okay.

Hans Zimmer's score really
washes over you in waves.

Then the music
just piles it on.

The camera pans down and you're
left with a big question.

Wow, music adds quite
a bit here.

We've seen over
the last five, six years

where people
that are not film composers

were asked by a director
to do something unique.

Like Trent reznor
and Atticus Ross.

And I think these are really
good examples

where people
just really love people

that have an artist's career in
the world outside of film scoring

can bring so much authenticity in
music and sound to the picture.

The sounds they're using
are extremely contemporary.

Their score for
"the social network"

it's an emotional palette. It's a very
disturbing kind of lyrical piano.

It's human,
but it's technical.

It's emotionally dark,
but it's got some feeling to it.

When David fincher called,

"hey, I want you to
score my next film". Fuck yeah.

"It's a movie about Facebook".

I would be hard-pressed to think of
something that sounded less sexy.

And we were
shuffling the deck

trying things that didn't
feel intuitive.

Talking about changing
the temperature of a movie

and the emotional response
of the audience.

Radically different.

The whole movie feels
different after that.

I think it feels like
a much more important film

than the kind of
"ah, college life, tomfoolery"

that it could have been misled

into feeling
with the wrong music in there.

And ever since that point,
there are a lot more electronic

artists doing film scores.

Electronic production,
and engineering

and a whole different way
of looking at music

that is often
much more visceral.

Trent reznor and Atticus Ross
for "The Social Network."

I think it's totally deserved
that Trent Reznor

not only got nominated but
also won an Oscar for score.

It's completely deserved.

When you have an unconventional
image with unconventional sound,

like with a lot of the things
Trent and Atticus are doing,

the results can
really be so much greater

than the sum of their parts.

What the net result
of that is, you know,

in some ways
is sort of beautiful chaos.

Film music has changed,
fairly radically.

There's far
more experimentation.

There's far more freedom and inviting
artists who would never have

thought of doing a film score
and nobody would have thought

of doing a film score before.

And to me that's really
exciting.

Technology
has made it possible

for every composer
to be a producer, as well.

At the core of it, though,
is the tune.

For this one
is the only cue that I feel

that we still need
to work a little bit.

It happens to be the opening
of the movie.

So, if we can get like this

our orchestral ukulele,
so to speak,

in a very simple...
Very like

plink, plink, plink,
plink, plink.

- Like that way, yup.
- Flies it by, yeah.

Very, very kinda sweet.

One, two, three and...

Can we do it... okay.

Can we do it so your nails
go on top of the string,

so it's kind of dirty.

So you plink,
plink, plink,

yes, yes.

The cellos now.

An amazing sound.

- Happy?
- I'm more than happy, man.

I'm like hypnotized.

Yeah, yeah.

Whoo-hoo!

Man, this is some
powerful stuff.

Beautiful.

I just wanna thank you again
because you are amazing,

and what a privilege
it is for a musician,

like myself, to have you
guys playing my music.

So, thank you very much.

Thank you, Heitor.

Film music is essentially
a recorded art.

Once you have the recording,
then you're into mixing,

the more technological
part of the production.

Before the music
leaves my studio,

I just give it
one last final mix

to make sure everything that
I want to be heard is heard.

Every element needs
some amount of attention

to create the overall
feel that you want.

So that's... that's his
main little melody.

Very simple, because
he's a big simple, evil dude.

So there's a point where, it's a
really dramatic moment in the film.

Up until this point
in the music

I didn't have
any French horns,

so I introduced them.

You probably
can't even hear them.

I can hear them because I know
what they're playing, but...

Okay, so, now simply
mixing them up a bit.

Every time I played that
just then, they were there.

When I turn
the horns down,

I don't feel
that emotional peak.

Now there's 50 foot robots
running down the highway,

that line
better be mixed up loud,

otherwise, you're not
gonna hear it.

You want your intention
to be clear.

The horns just give it kind of
more of an emotional weight.

That's a part of mixing, is just
making sure the elements

that you want to grab hold
of the audience

are loud enough
to make a statement.

And you can't really
be wishy washy.

You have
to make bold statements.

I think, you know,
with "Furious 7,"

people really reacted
to that film

on an emotional level.

Paul and his character
say goodbye.

That's probably one of the most
powerful theater experiences

I've had watching a film
that I had worked on.

And it kind of crossed over
his real life.

You can feel when a cue
is working the audience.

That's what I love
about film music,

if it's all emotion.

I think seeing audience reaction
to films that you've worked on

is really helpful.

It doesn't help you
for the film that you just did,

because it's already out
in the theater.

But it certainly will help you
for the next film.

Seeing literally the reaction
of how people respond

to your music,
that's really cool.

Now often, I'll cruise up
to the front,

and creepily turn back
and look at the audience

watching the movie.

Very rarely
am I spotted doing that.

Every once in a while I will
look through the audience,

I'm enjoying
everyone watching it,

and then there's one head
like at the tennis match

with the one person like looking
right at you looking at them

and that's uncomfortable,
and then I leave.

You want to get a sense
of how did this work?

Especially in the scenes
that are really musical.

Did they move people?

And then I do something
that's slightly embarrassing.

I will run into
a bathroom stall,

um, and see
if they're humming

or whistling the theme,

and it is amazing how many times
that's actually happened.

It's like the ultimate
pat on the back.

To me, I feel like
I affected them on a level

that they're unaware of.

It's cool to be able
to witness people

experiencing
what I experienced

when I was watching films
growing up.

And to think that it lives on
beyond you is a crazy thing.

I mean, it's definitely
gonna outlive me.

You know, these movies
will be continued to be watched

and that's really cool.

One of the responsibilities
we have as film composers,

is we're the last people
on earth who on a daily basis

commission orchestral music.

Without us, the orchestras
might just disappear,

and I think that will
create a rift

in, you know,
human culture.

I think it will be
such a loss to humanity.

We all have this fragility.

We can chat for hours
and in a funny way,

I'm very secure about this.

I... because I hide
behind the work.

You'll never really
figure me out.

But when I play you
a piece of music,

I completely expose myself.

And that's the really
scary moment.

I love, I love,
I love what I do.

Even when I sit there
driven by paranoia, fear,

neurosis, you know,
pulling my hair out.

I still wouldn't trade it
for anything else.

Very few people
can be inspired every day

to write something brilliant.

Whether or not
you're aware of it,

music plays
such an important role

in how you respond
to a film.

All your other work on a film
can come to nothing

if you don't
get the music right.

You constantly have
to reinvent yourself

and you have to adapt to very,
very difficult psyches.

It's quite a lot of weight
to carry on your shoulders,

if you're just struggling
and you have self doubts,

and sometimes, yeah, sometimes
you crash into a wall.

The satisfaction of succeeding,
yeah, it's really something.

Film music is one
of the great art forms

of the 20th and 21st century.

There is something
about what the film composer

brings in
by their intuition.

That unique ecology,
that unique combination

is what makes film music
so powerful, so mysterious,

and probably uncaptureable
to us as scientists.

When we were cutting "Titanic",
James was sending over music

as he was... 'Cause what
he would do is sketch out

on synthesizer,
with his synthesist,

what he intended to do
with the orchestra.

So I was used to getting
sort of new ideas coming in.

So I was sitting there
cutting one day

and a disc came in
that said, "sketch."

I thought, "oh, okay, this goes
for the sketching scene."

I just kinda slid it around
until I found a place

where it seemed to sync
with the scene nicely.

So serious.

There's a kind of
piano downbeat

that I just put on
Leonardo's eyes coming up

and looking directly
at the camera.

A critical moment
of eye contact

between the two of them
while he's drawing her,

and then, boy,
it just really flowed.

So, I was so excited about it,
I called him up,

I said, "listen,
this is working so well."

I put it up
to the sketching scene

and it's working
fantastically.

And he said, "oh, no, no, no,
no, that's just a sketch.

It's just a piano sketch
of a melody.

We can drop it in anywhere." And I said,
"but it works beautifully on this scene.

He said, "really?" I said,
"yeah, get your ass over here."

So, he came over, he said,
"oh, that works pretty well."

He said, "all right,
well, I'll orchestrate it."

I said, "no, no, no, no.
Just the piano."

He said, "all right, I know
the best pianist in the world.

I know...
He's out of London."

I said, "no, it's you,
buddy, it's you."

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