Interview | Dan Jones
Dan Jones Dan Jones is a double Ivor-winning composer and sound designer working in film, TV and theatre. He won his first Ivor in 2004 for the soundtrack to director Menno Mayjes’ movie, Max, starring John Cusack. More recently he composed the music for Channel 4’s Any Human Heart, which won him the Ivor for Best Television Soundtrack for 2010. Away from film and TV, he is a founding member and co-artistic director of the Sound and Fury Theatre Company, whose productions pioneer the immersive use of experimental sound design. What do you remember about winning your first Ivor in 2004? It was a great honour and an extraordinary day. People assume you must know about winning beforehand but I had no idea – it was a very well kept secret. So I was amazed. At The Ivors, you realise how much incredible talent there is in the room. To think that your fellow composers and songwriters have had an input into the decision, it makes you feel like you must be doing something right. Is that what makes The Ivors special? Definitely. There are dangers that other awards can actually be a celebration of things around the work, like an artist’s image. With film writing it can be especially difficult for people without industry insight to understand what the music is contributing to a film. So it’s very flattering to be recognised by your peers.
“The point about any of the scores I write is there has to be a genuine commitment to understand the characters and where they’re coming from.”
Did you enjoy writing the film score for Max? It was a great challenge, as the film is about a very sensitive subject. It looks at Hitler when he was a painter. The director cleverly pressed pause at that time in history and asked how an artist – someone with some sensitivity – could turn into the world’s worst tyrant. He wanted to tell that story and not become a slave to what we knew was about to unfold in history. That was true for the music too, which meant I was in the strange position of writing quite light-hearted music to one of the world’s worst villains. But that was necessary because it had to be genuine. The point about any of the scores I write is there has to be a genuine commitment to understand the characters and where they’re coming from, whoever they are.
How did winning the Ivor affect your career? It is a fantastic confidence boost of course. But Galileo said that self-doubt is the father of invention. So, while you have to wear the award with complete pride and honour, you have to remember to keep self-questioning and examining. Bizarrely, I think getting a big award like that actually pulls you back to thinking even harder about what you can do to up your game. You’re thinking, let’s not drop the ball now. What was it like writing the music for Any Human Heart? That was a hugely exciting and daunting project. The music had to embrace not only the vast nature of the story but also many of the extreme ‘close-ups’ into the characters. Getting the music to be both epic and also intimate and personal was a real challenge, but such a wonderful, passionate story was a real gift for a composer. Have you always loved writing for narrative? Yes, what pushed me into music writing in the first place was helping to tell stories. I love to think that music helps audiences and characters to get into the same room. It builds a bridge, which is very important. I almost feel that it’s a retrospective collaboration with the actors. And that of course only works through the director, the cameraman and everyone else involved. We’re all trying to give the audience the best possible insight into a character. I think the world needs that now more than ever. Anything that we can do to help people see what it’d be like to see the world from someone else’s point of view is an important activity. Music can help to do that.
The 2012 Ivor Novello Awards | 57
