VOLUME XXXII NUMBER FOUR WINTER 2017
B E H I N D T H E S C E N E S
The Importance Of The Music Contractor By Lori Barth
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omposers need the best musicians available to record their music. It can make or break the success of a score. One of the most important allies composers can have is their music contractor. The contractor helps coordinate and books the musicians for your recording date (whether for film, television, video games or records, or for live performances). The Score reached out to three of the top contractors to hear some of their views on managing your orchestra. The answers from each are in alphabetical order by their last names. We spoke to Peter Rotter, Reggie Wilson and Gina Zimmitti. g g g
When asked what their relationship was like with the composers they work with, and how they go to bat for them to get the best orchestras they need, Peter Rotter says, “My relationships with my clients are as unique and individual as each composer I work with. I aim to work alongside each client’s musical personality to help cast the right musicians for their distinctive musical needs. Often times I act as an advocate on their behalf, particularly when budgets are restrictive, to help sell the specific needs they require. I tend to act as a ‘Papa Bear’ to protect and support my clients and their one-of-a-kind needs, both personally and professionally.” Reggie Wilson continues, “It’s important to remember that the composer/contractor relationship is essentially a client/service provider business relationship. The contractor is there to provide a specialized service to the composer, i.e., hiring the best available musicians to perform a specific style of mu-
sic. But in the best case it is also a collaborative relationship: One in which the composer trusts the contractor to know his or her musical tastes and creative preferences so that not only will the best musicians for the job be hired, but that these musicians will be in tune with the composer’s personality and attitude. To that end, I will not only call the appropriate musicians, but I will cajole, beg, and barter to get the right musicians on the call for a given job. I find that a band or orchestra that can happily work together with the composer, and each other in a collegial attitude, makes for an exceptional group of musicians, capable of making amazing music.” Gina Zimmitti says, “Each relationship is unique and fun in its own way and that is one of the things I enjoy most about my work. I’ve always related to musicians (I married a drummer) and I have such respect for what a composer does. I’ve never looked at it as Continued on Page 18
One of the most important allies composers can have is their music contractor.
C O N T E N T S
Past Presidents Remember 5 Tech Talk 7 New Gear 9 Nicholas Britell: The Alchemy Of Film Music 12
Peter Rotter
Reggie Wilson
Gina Zimmitti
Musical Shares 23
F R O M T H E E D I T O R ' S D E S K
Time Flies By Lori Barth
President ASHLEY IRWIN Vice Presidents ARTHUR HAMILTON CHARLES BERNSTEIN Recording Secretary JONATHAN DAVID NEAL Treasurer/CFO CHRISTOPHER FARRELL The SCORE LORI BARTH, Senior Editor Advisory Board ALAN BERGMAN MARILYN BERGMAN CHARLES BERNSTEIN BILL CONTI CHARLES FOX JAMES NEWTON HOWARD QUINCY JONES ALAN MENKEN THOMAS NEWMAN LALO SCHIFRIN MARC SHAIMAN HOWARD SHORE ALAN SILVESTRI DIANE WARREN PATRICK WILLIAMS CHRISTOPHER YOUNG HANS ZIMMER In Memoriam Advisory Board Members ELMER BERNSTEIN JOHN CACAVAS JERRY GOLDSMITH MAURICE JARRE PETER MATZ DAVID RAKSIN Directors RAMÓN BALCÁZAR LORI BARTH FLETCHER BEASLEY RUSSELL BROWER GEORGE S. CLINTON DAVID DAS JOEL DOUEK IRA HEARSHEN LYNN KOWAL MICHAEL LEHMANN BODDICKER MARK MCKENZIE HELENE MUDDIMAN GREG PLISKA MARK ROOS ELIZABETH ROSE ADRYAN RUSS GARRY SCHYMAN ELIZABETH SELLERS KUBILAY UNER Past Presidents JOHN ADDISON RICHARD BELLIS BRUCE BROUGHTON JAY CHATTAWAY RAY COLCORD JAMES DI PASQUALE DAN FOLIART ARTHUR HAMILTON MARK WATTERS
I
have been lucky enough to be the editor of The Score since 1984, going on 34 years with two ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards and over 132 issues under my belt! I have had the pleasure of working with all of our past presidents and our current one. I have met so many wonderful composers and lyricists along the way and made lifetime friends. I would especially like to thank Charles Bernstein, Gary Woods, Fletcher Beasley and Jack D. Elliot for their columns for every issue without fail, and Adryan Russ for her tireless proofreading. It has been quite a journey, to say the least. It has also been an honor and a privilege to serve the members of The Society of Composers & Lyricists. It’s with a heavy heart that I lay down my pen, so to speak, and make way for someone new to take the reins. Signing off for now but it’s not goodbye because I will see you around, that’s for sure. I will remain on the board of directors. g
DIAMOND MEMBERS Kristen Anderson-Lopez Lori Barth Alan & Marilyn Bergman Dennis C. Brown Carter Burwell Ray Charles George Clinton
Bill Conti Patrick Doyle Clint Eastwood Dan Foliart Charles Fox Elliot Goldenthal
Arthur Hamilton James Howard Mark Isham Robert Lopez Johnny Mandel Randy Newman
Office@thescl.com
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Dennis Spiegel Mike Stoller Matthew Strachan Patrick Williams John Williams Maury Yeston
DIAMOND SPONSORS / PATRONS William Brewster
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PLATINUM MEMBERS Mark Adler Jack Allocco Marco Beltrami Amin Bhatia Steven Bramson
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PLATINUM SPONSORS / PATRONS Randy Gerston
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GOLD MEMBERS Cato Michael Abels Josh Alexander Elik Alvarez Amy Andersson Sara Andon Neil Argo Alexander Arntzen Sebastian Arocha Morton Spring Aspers Charles-Henri Avelange Melissa Axel Ramon Balcazar Steve Barden Joe Barrera Jr. John Beal Jeff Beal Jonathan Beard Joel Beckerman Charles Bernstein David Bertok Peter Boyer Richard Bronskill Russell Brower Dan Brown Jr Benedikt Brydern Kenneth Burgomaster Dennis Burke Christopher Cano Jeff Cardoni Kristopher Carter Sacha Chaban Jay Chattaway Dongliang Chen Michael Choi Shawn Clement Elia Cmiral Jerry Cohen Jim Cox Imre Czomba Dina D’Alessandro
Mychael Danna Jana Davidoff Tim Davies Alberto De La Rocha John DeFaria Arhynn Descy John Dickson James DiPasquale Scott Doherty Lisa Dondlinger Joel Douek Dennis Dreith Bruce Dukov Robert Duncan Laura Dunn JC Dwyer Erich Einfalt Jarryd Elias Laura Engel Evan Evans Joel Evans Sharon Farber Jack Faulkner Shelley Fisher Pablo Flores Attila Fodor Jared Forman Andy Forsberg Alexandre Fortuit Pam Gates William Goldstein Mark Graham Gordy Haab Eric Hachikian Christine Hals Wayne Hankin Bruce Healey Reinhold Heil Shari Hoffman Lee Holdridge
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Scott Holtzman Trevor Howard Russ Howard III Wei-San Hsu Asuka Ito Joel Iwataki Lynda Jacobs Ken Jacobsen Brandon Jarrett Michael Jay anik Jean Garrett Johnson Quincy Jones Federico Jusid Taisuke Kimura Dave Kinnoin Grant Kirkhope Jasha Klebe Kevin Kliesch Rebecca Kneubuhl Christopher Knight Lynn F. Kowal Stephanie Kowal Raashi Kulkarni Michael A Lang Didier Lean Rachou Edie Lehmann Boddicker Michael Lehmann Boddicker Christopher Lennertz Michael Levine Noah Lifschey Charley Londono Zoe Lustri David Majzlin Gerard Marino Vance Marino Tracey Marino Billy Martin Richard Marvin Benjamin Mason
John Massari Arlene Matza-Jackson Michael McCuistion Joel McNeely Jeffrey Michael Bryan Miller Bruce Miller Tricia Minty Brian Moe Sandro Morales Jeff Morrow Helene Muddiman David Murillo R, Jonathan Neal Joey Newman Matt Novack Greg O’Connor Cindy O’Connor Bijan Olia Anele Onyekwere Nathan Pangrazio Isabel Pappani Hannah Parrott Benj Pasek Carla Patullo Justin Paul Art Phillips Stu Phillips Mark Phillips John Piscitello Kim Planert Judi Pulver Mac Quayle Daniel Raijman J. Ralph Ron Ramin Trent Reznor Allan Rich Michael (Chris) Ridenhour Lolita Ritmanis
Carlos Rivera Atticus Ross Enis Rotthoff Adryan Russ Jeff Russo Steven Saltzman Garry Schyman Tony Scott-Green Elizabeth Sellers Batu Sener Rochelle Sharpe Ryan Shore Michael Silversher Helen Simmins-McMillin Scott Smith Mark Smythe Curt Sobel Arturo Solar Sally Stevens Candace Stewart Karen Tanaka Dara Taylor Damon Tedesco Justin Timberlake Jeremy Tisser Pinar Toprak Tyler Traband John Traunwieser Jake Versluis Genevieve Vincent Diane Warren Mark Watters Frederik Wiedmann David Williams Alan Williams Jonathan Wolff Gernot Wolfgang David Wood Catharine Wood Christopher Young Rendra Zawawi
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ISSN 1066-5447 Society of Composers & Lyricists 8447 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 401 Beverly Hills, CA 90211 Ph (310) 281-2812
Mike Post Lalo Schifrin Richard Sherman David Shire Alan Silvestri Mark Snow
Ken Helmer Sabrina Hutchinson Anne Juenger Richard Kraft Robert Messinger Stacey Nesig
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P R E S I D E N T ’ S M E S S A G E
The Best Of Times, The Worst Of Times
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By Ashley Irwin
ince the introduction of video streaming and the advent of services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and most recently Facebook, the need for music has grown exponentially. Additionally, the growth of reality and lifestyle programming, increasingly faster turnaround times and the desire of most picture editors to cut their images to music have seen a surge in production music and the number of libraries that represent it. The opportunities for media music creators are arguably more prolific today than they’ve ever been before. But the opportunity for their exploitation is also ubiquitous. New business models often see what have been accepted practices modified or bypassed altogether, as the old ways may not appear the most preferred to the non-traditional delivery platforms. The blanket license offered by the PROs, long a staple of the broadcast and cable world, is being challenged on a regular basis as certain delivery services look to license directly from music providers or purchase the works outright, preventing any further income streams to the composer after the initial transaction.
Meanwhile, in the world of production music, the reputable libraries adhere to the Production Music Association’s recommendations for sustainable business models and practices but there are always those few unscrupulous outfits who like to skirt the rules on occasion, by taking inequitable stakes in the works or cutting in third parties at the expense of the verified rights holders. Then there are the composer “shops” and “academies” working under the guise of nurturing careers through exposure and experience. Pseudonyms often appear on cue sheets, royalties are sometimes pooled and divided ad hoc, the actual composers may or may not be credited on screen and threats of repercussion for “blowing the whistle” abound. There are even outfits that deem any thoughts you have while under their employ or jurisdiction remain their property. Seriously? This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer sold his jokes and experiences to J. Peterman and in doing so, was no longer able to recount them. Have we really moved into a Lewis Carroll world? In my capacity as president of The SCL, I often hear from members who are confronted
There always have been, and will be, less than stellar deals on offers to music creators, but for every one that goes into effect, it’s one more domino that risks setting off an irreversible trend.
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Happy Birthday,
Lalo!
L
alo Schifrin celebrated his 85th birthday with a concert honoring the maestro and his music at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, CA on October 6, 2017, sponsored by Musicians at Play, Music Fund Los Angeles, and Varèse Sarabande. The evening was hosted by Robert Townson with guest conductor Chris Walden, who led an all-star big band celebrating Lalo’s life, artistry, and esteemed body of work. Flutist Sara Andon was a featured soloist. SCL President Ashley Irwin presented Lalo with the SCL Lifetime Achievement Award. g Happy Birthday, Lalo!
L-R: Jeff Beal, Sara Andon, Dan Foliart, Lalo Schifrin, Chris Walden, Robert Townsen, Bruce Broughton, Christopher Young, Craig Safan, John Debney and Steve Tyrell
L-R: SCL President Ashley Irwin and Lalo Schifrin
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President’s Message
N O T E S F R O M N E W Y O R K
SCL New York Events SCL NY Panel at PLAY NYC: The Art of Creating Music and Sound for Games
with Benedict Green, John Kaefer, Elizabeth Lim, and Tom Salta Moderated by Mark Roos Saturday, August 19th at Terminal 5
L-R: John Kaefer, Mark Roos, Elizabeth Lim, Tom Salta, Adonis Tsilimparis, Benedict Green
Seminar: Composers and their DAWs
with Greg Ondo and Christopher Gillard Moderated by Mark Roos Thursday, September 28th at Alchemical Studios
L-R: Greg Ondo, Mark Suozzo, Christopher Gillard, Mark Roos, Greg Pliska, Allison Leyton-Brown
SongArts, Fall 2017, L-R: Elizabeth Rose, Danny Gray, Rob Reale, Adonis Tsilimparis, Steven Scharf
Fall 2017 SongArts NY Workshop
with Rob Reale and Steven Scharf Moderated by Elizabeth Rose and Adonis Tsilimparis Wednesday, October 19th at Alchemical Studios SCL NY / GANG Hang at AES
Friday, October 20th at The Beer Authority SCL NY Mentor Program events:
• Kickoff Party at Man Made Music — Oct. 11th • Working with Sample Libraries with Eric Hachikian — Oct. 17th • Orchestration with Greg Pliska — Oct. 24th • Composing for Music Libraries with Adonis Tsilimparis — Oct. 26th 4
Continued from Page 3
with offers of work under terms of engagement with which they are unfamiliar. It’s not an overstatement to say that the scurrilous nature of some of the deals on offer leave me cold. I somewhat expect this behavior from those new players in the streaming space who are testing their alternative business models. But it’s particularly upsetting when the exploitation of composers is being perpetrated by composers. Let me be very clear. It is not The SCL’s job to police the deals composers and songwriters choose to accept. There always have been, and will be, less than stellar deals on offers to music creators, but for every one that goes into effect, it’s one more domino that risks setting off an irreversible trend. The SCL can only offer recommendations it considers will best sustain the musical eco-system for future generations by maintaining our profession rather than relegating what we do to a hobby. However, if a music creator chooses to sell out all future income streams and believes he/she has been adequately compensated up front, so be it. I readily concede the concept of “exploitation” is relative but never lose sight of the fact that entities who want the fruits of our labors want them because they are of value. The onus is on us, the music creators, to avoid being exploited and if everyone pushes back against practices the majority deem unacceptable, the unavailability of quality craftspeople will hopefully enact change and those on the other side of the table will learn to appreciate g the difference.
L O O K I N G B A C K
Past Presidents Remember Compiled by Lori Barth
T
he Society of Composers has a long and rich history. We have been lucky enough to have had great presidents at our helm. Looking back, The Score asked each one (except John Addison, who was president in 1987 and has since passed away, and the late Ray Colcord) the same three questions: • How did you come to be the presi- dent of The SCL? • Was the job difficult and what things did you have to overcome? What did you want to accomplish? • What do you think you achieved for the organization under your presidency? This is what each one of them had to say. We owe them a debt of gratitude for their service to our organization. g g g
JAMES DiPASQUALE 1983-1985
It happened almost randomly. The Composers and Lyricists Guild of America (CLGA) was a labor union founded in 1955 to represent composers and lyricists in contract negotiations with the major studios and production companies. In 1972, the CLGA filed suit against the studios after they refused to negotiate a new contract for composers and lyricists. The case dragged on for seven years and finally concluded in September, 1979. I was elected vicepresident of the CLGA in 1980 at a time when it was struggling to regain its former status as a functioning union. After three years of major resistance from the studios, the CLGA was forced to cease operations in June of 1982. Almost immediately thereafter, a group of about 25 composers and lyricists began meeting to discuss a new labor union to represent composers and lyricists. I was asked to be the Organizing Chairman of this new union which was eventually called The Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL). This
new group received its charter in July, 1983, but was denied union status by the Reagan Administration in December, 1984. As the Organizing Chairman of The SCL, I served as its first president until 1985, when Arthur Hamilton succeeded me. As the Organizing Chairman, I led a committee of about eight volunteers who canvassed the composer and lyricist community collecting signed cards authorizing The SCL to represent them in contract negotiations with all the major production companies. It was an enormous task, which took many months to complete. Most people were enthusiastic about a new union, but there was some pushback from CLGA members who were disheartened by its closure after more than 20 years of successfully negotiating with producers. The objective of The SCL was to be a modernized labor union that could negotiate stronger contracts with film and TV producers than the CLGA had been able to achieve. My job in organizing The SCL was to establish it as a fully-functioning labor union representing composers and lyricists. Unfortunately, we were not able to realize that goal because of opposition from the Reagan Administration. But The SCL has continued operating successfully for the last 33 years as the primary association representing and informing composers and lyricists about all matters relating to our profession. That achievement has now helped two generations of composers and songwriters get their careers started. Needless to say, I’m happy about that. g g g
ARTHUR HAMILTON 1985-1987
I think I was SCL’s President at the same time Lori Barth became Editor of The Score. At that time, I think there were not more than 100 members, and there was very little money in the treasury. The difficulty we had to overcome
was to emerge from the disappointing task of emerging from the shadow of CLGA and building a new organization with the help of Lori Barth, Jim Di Pasquale, Gary Woods and a few significant others. Following my tenure as president, I remained (and still remain) on the board. It was great fun and very satisfying to produce two fundraising events during subsequent years. The first was “Dinner With Your Attorney,” and the second was “Dinner With Your Agent.” Both dinners helped the organization move forward. g g g
BRUCE BROUGHTON 1988-1993
I was approached by Jim Di Pasquale and some others to take over the presidency shortly after the NLRB had turned us down on appeal for union status. At that time, most members were depressed or discouraged by the government’s decision and didn’t bother staying with The SCL. Our membership was something like 50 people, composed either of die-hards or of people who simply hadn’t bothered cancelling their memberships. We had no programs and no apparent future, and The Score was a two-page Xerox of chatty information, about what I don’t recall. It was the nadir of The SCL movement. My two smartest actions were to work with Lori Barth as the editor of The Score and to turn it into a more substantial magazine, not just a handout, and the second was to ask Dennis Spiegel to help build membership. Eventually Shirley Walker became our vice-president (I once introduced her at an SCL gathering as “the indomitable Shirley Walker,” which she was). I worked on programs and seminars of interest to our members and we eventually had some doozies. I also made a point of getting our meetings out of somebody’s studio and began renting hotel space Continued on Next Page 5
Past Presidents Remember Continued from Page 5
all around town to hold what soon became day-long events, usually packed with paying members. In short, it was my job and goal to make a body with a purpose out of The SCL. When I left, after five years, having fooled Richard Bellis into becoming my successor, we had about 450 members (thank you, Dennis), an informative quarterly magazine about our industry (thank you, Lori), a working Board (thanks to so many), well-attended programs of relevance and the basic structure that continues, with many improvements, to this day. We began the Holiday Dinner, which originally and intentionally did not include awards, the idea being that we were celebrating ourselves, or, as Arthur Hamilton put it, assembling “a gathering of greatness.” It was always the one social event of the year in which composers and songwriters could get together and talk in a lively spirit of holiday sharing. The one thing I could never figure out, however, was to how to keep The SCL consistently solvent. That job was left to Ray Colcord to figure out and resolve. I remain deeply grateful to and for all the people who worked so hard during my years as president to make The SCL strong and important to the film composing community. g g g
RICHARD BELLIS 1993-1997
Bruce Broughton was desperate in his search for someone to take over for him. The fact that it was to be me shows you just how desperate he was. I had served as a governor of the Television Academy but had only been on the board of The SCL for a short time. I guess my wideeyed innocence was apparent. Bruce and Dennis Spiegel took me to lunch at a very nice restaurant in the Valley and started a well-choreographed dialogue (or sales pitch) sprinkled with an array of compliments—“Look, even his socks are presidential—so that by the end of 6
the three-cocktail lunch I was pretty much hooked. I think I could even make out an audible sigh from Bruce as he paid the bill. It did not seem difficult. When you are totally motivated and certain in the cause, it is absolutely energizing. The Saban issue, unleashed in a brave and uncompromising article by then board member Ray Colcord, provided a few challenges but we emerged stronger and more confident than before. Presidents either inherit a mission or they must create one. My mission was mostly inherited. Since the NLRB had denied us employee status and defined us rather as independent contractors, the only option left in our quest toward becoming a union was to explore affiliation with an existing collective. But this was at a time when our community was starting to swell with aspiring film composers. I spent a great deal of time looking for a relationship partner but, in the end, unionizing created the very real possibility of inadvertently giving rise to a non-union marketplace made up of those trying to break into the business (by offering their services for less in order to acquire credits, experience and relationships). That made a union environment seem not only impractical but potentially counter-productive. I think we all achieved several things in common: growing the membership, increasing visibility and actively participating more and more in those areas, both political and industrial that affect the lives of composers and lyricists and their families. I suggested creating a one-day conference for composers and filmmakers and, in a serendipitous phone call with the Hollywood Reporter’s (at the time) Judi Pulver, realized she was thinking along the same lines. Together we created a day-long, state-of-the-industry conference held at the DGA which has continued, in one form or another, to this day. I would just add that none of us has provided more important service to this organization than has Lori Barth. Her work on The Score has been a main stay of this society. Not just her journalistic talents but her ability to deal with fellow board members and each of the different presidential personalities has been the face and voice of The SCL for 34 years, representing us in the best possible light. Thank you for all that you have done on our behalf!!!
JAY CHATTAWAY 1997-1999
I came to The SCL as a result of my association with Jim Di Pasquale. We followed each other’s footsteps through many different paths—from the advertising industry in New York, jazz performance, film and television composing and many more. He and others approached me to help lead The SCL in a challenging time. I hadn’t been a board member previously, so it was quite the adventure. Plus, I was an extremely busy working composer, currently scoring Star Trek as well as motion pictures when I was chosen. It seemed like a very full-time job with lots of meetings, phone calls and decisions to make. I had been deeply involved with the Performing Rights Committee as I strongly believed that an organization could help make a difference when we approached our various performing rights societies as a group and asked for changes to benefit the members. This turned out to be a substantial part of the work of my administration. We did bring about important changes in how the societies treated “underscore” and gradually increased the weighted importance of the use of our music on screen. We went head-to-head with Saban Entertainment to help bring about improved working conditions for our members working in the animation field, despite the fact that we were still not a collective bargaining organization. I saw our membership increase dramatically during this period and we started our website and with the help of Ron Grant had some of the best graphic representation of our art. We also began to have filmed interactive meetings with established senior composers in the hopes of archiving their work. (David Raksin and Patrick Williams to name a few.) Our seminar programs also started being filmed and made available to members who couldn’t attend. I guess the one thing that I feel was of most importance was the establishment of our mentor program. This is what I Continued on Page 19
T E C H T A L K
Organizing Your Kontakt Libraries By Fletcher Beasley
W
hen you only have a few Kontakt libraries in your collection, organization is fairly simple and it is easy to access libraries through the libraries tab in the browser. Once a library has been installed and added to Kontakt, an image of the library is displayed and presets can be found by clicking on the instruments or multis bar below the library image. This method works fine when your collection is small, but as it grows the libraries tab becomes cumbersome to work with. A better way to manage your growing collection is to spend a little time organizing the Quick-Load browser for fast and easy access to all the sounds in your libraries. The Quick-Load browser displays in the lower portion of the Kontakt rack and can be toggled by typing command-f or right clicking anywhere in the rack. If you have never opened Quick-Load, there will not be any files or folders in its browser, as you have to populate it with the sounds you wish to access. The three tabs found at the top of the Quick-Load browser allow you to create Quick-Load objects for Multis, Banks and Instruments and you need to click on the appropriate tab to create a Quick-Load link for the type of preset you wish to add. I primarily use Instruments so I will use them in my examples, but the same procedure applies to Multis and Banks. Quick-Load works by adding folders and files to the Quick-Load browser giving you an area from which to quickly access your sounds. You add a folder by right-clicking in the Quick-Load browser, and choosing “Add new folder.” I recommend creating folders for categories of sounds so that you can navigate quickly by types that work for you. Presets can go in multiple folders, so you don’t need to worry if a library or preset doesn’t fit neatly into one category. On my system, I have created the following folders at the root level of Quick-Load: Brass, Drums, Ethnic,
Quick-Load browser with defined folders and instruments
Keys, Misc, Perc, Strings, Synth, Orchestra, and Winds. Once your folders have been created, it is a straightforward process to add presets from your libraries. Go to the browser libraries tab and click on the instruments bar to display all the folders for the library. Shift click to select all the folders in the library and drag them into the folder in the Quick-Load area. When your cursor turns to a plus sign, it indicates that you are dragging your selections to the correct spot. You need to repeat this process for all subfolders and presets within the library because dragging a folder into QuickLoad only saves the folder, not the contents within it. For Kontakt libraries and presets that don’t show up under the libraries tab, click on the Files tab, navigate to their location on your hard drive, then drag those presets into your Quick-Load browser. Kontakt preset types can be identified by their file extension—.nki for instruments, .nkb for banks and .nkm for multis. Many composers have multiple computers with the same library structure and it is simple to copy the Quick-Load assignments to your corresponding computers. Quick-Load assignments are found on a Mac at ~/Users/ Username/Library/Application Support/ Native Instruments/Kontakt 5/QuickLoad. Copy the files and folders in this directory to the corresponding one on another computer, but note that the preset links (the links to the .nki, .nkm and .nkb files) will work only if your corresponding computers have the same volume names and paths. If your other computers have different paths, the folders should work, but you will have to recreate the preset links for each computer. On that note, Kontakt is very picky about the way that it locates files on your drives so once you have installed a library it is wise not to move it or rename the drive where it is located. Another way to navigate for sounds is to use Kontakt’s database, found under the database tab in the browser. The database browser allows you to filter sounds based on metadata that include Author, Bank, Timbre, Type and Vendor by clicking on the corresponding columns that filter by those metadata attributes. Type is probably the column you will use the most as it breaks down sounds into useful categories and some
A little time invested with the Quick-Load browser and some familiarity with Kontakt’s database functions can be a huge time saver when searching for the right samples for your project.
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Madonna Wade-Reed Talks Music Supervisor vision is expressed and translated to a composer before a single note is written. I have to make sure that what I’m doing is going to work with what the composer is doing and that all together it’s what the filmmaker envisioned. I’m there to help guide the ship so that when all is said and done everyone involved is happy with the end result
Score: Can you explain the explosion in the amount of Music Supervisors in the last ten years? More programming (original cable, Amazon, network)? Madonna: I’m sure there are a number of reasons, but the one that stands out the most to me is that the means with which to get your hands on new music and a larger variety of music has changed and expanded drastically. The internet was a game changer. Anyone and everyone can post their music and anyone and everyone can consume it. I think this lulls people into believing that knowing about many kinds of music qualifies them for the role of a supervisor. Obviously, there’s more to it than that, but it has certainly allowed people to adopt the title without having the full skill set needed. Score: Are there more shows that are relying on needle drop without a composer attached to them? Madonna: I think if a show has forgone using a composer that it’s probably more because of a financial restraint and not because they think
Organizing Your Kontakt Libraries Continued from Page 7
Score: How are you finding the songs you use: soundcloud, libraries, direct submissions? Do you take submissions from songwriters and if so, how do you like to receive them? What is your favorite kind of submission?
they don’t need one. I do think more and more, shows are realizing that needle drops are just as important as score in creating a cohesive musical identity for a project. Score: How do you work with the composer and filmmaker? Madonna: I can be anything from a translator, a helper to a peacekeeper. More often than not, I’m there to help make sure a filmmaker’s musical You can also search the database by metadata and file name by clicking in the search area to the left of the displayed results. A search on “horn”, for example, brings up any file with horn in the name or metadata. You can add multiple words to the search to hone your searches down and get more usable results. Attributes can be added to a sound by right-clicking on a preset, selecting edit and clicking on the attributes you
Filtering by attributes with database browser
types have sub types to help you further hone down what you are looking for. The resulting presets display in a list below the metadata filters and can be loaded into the rack by double-clicking on the preset. 8
Editing a preset’s attributes
Madonna: For starters, I’m on the receiving end of a tremendous amount of submissions from labels, publishers and many, many music pitching companies. I also love to talk to people and fellow supervisors about what they’re listening to because I don’t presume to know everything. I also like to go down music rabbit holes on Spotify, YouTube and lots of other sites. Score: How important is metadata? Madonna: Vital. If someone hasn’t Continued on Page 21
wish to assign to a sound. Make sure you save your changes so the new metadata is saved with the patch. This is something I rarely do with third party libraries since the manufacturers usually have already assigned attributes, but is very useful to apply to any presets you have created. Unfortunately, as of Kontakt 5, it is no longer possible to add your own customized database attributes despite the claims of the manual. As you add sounds to Kontakt, using the libraries tab to browse sounds becomes ineffective for quickly finding the sounds you need for your projects. A little time invested with the QuickLoad browser and some familiarity with Kontakt’s database functions can be a huge time saver when searching for the right samples for your project. You will find the sounds you need more quickly and may even discover presets you didn’t even know
N E W G E A R
Vienna Dimension Strings I & II By Jack D. Elliot
A
nyone working as a composer definitely knows Vienna Symphonic Libraries. They have been cranking out amazing libraries for more than two decades. The Dimension Strings I & II collections consist of violins, violas, cellos, and bass sections. These two great collections can be sold separately or as a bundle. Dimension Strings I comes with your standard batch of articulations. The sample count in this library is insane. The violins alone are around 300,000 samples, and the whole collection tops a million samples. Pretty amazing for the buck. The Pro version will allow you to do sequences, ostinato programs, arpeggio gated patches and musical skill runs which you can save in the user folder for yourself. There are additionally a handful of sequences or ready-made arpeggios for use as well. I absolutely love this feature...it’s killer! It is very simple to just grab a sequence and throw on the sounds of your choice to play the sequence. This makes your work flow more efficient. The amount of detail that went into creating this library would make anybody’s head spin and pop right off. The violins and cellos were recorded simultaneously but each instrument was captured with its own individual mic, allowing you to build your own string orchestra piece by piece. It lets you blend the relative volume, or pan among other options like creating the VC patches, or the swelling of a small ensemble into a large one in real time. This is true for all articulations and multiple round-robin stages as well. A well-liked feature included now is the human performance control function. As I have said in the past, it is crucial to store your library on a solid-state drive, due to the size of the sample libraries and streaming. I use an SSD drive, and the load times are extremely fast compared to other libraries I have used. This is a major plus when you have your creative mojo flowing. The last thing you want to deal with is twiddling your thumbs while some little beach ball spins across the screen. There is massive competition out there with string libraries. I have pretty much worked with or own them all. My feeling with any orchestral library is that each company has its strengths. Trying to rely on only one library for strings can work, but you are likely to get better results picking and choosing between libraries to make everything sound more au-
thentic. I do have to say, though, that Dimension Strings I and II are really good. If this is your only string library, you will be in really good shape with your compositions. So let’s talk about the sounds. The recordings and the tonal quality are simply amazing. Everything has a sonic richness and an extremely live feel...although obviously nothing beats a real orchestra. The string recordings in this library, in my opinion, are of a much higher quality than the original strings VSL put out years ago. On a creation level with the sounds, it does take a little more work than some other libraries I have used. With some libraries, you can just pull up a patch, and BAM! It sounds like a massive orchestra. But the problem with those libraries, is that you are limited to that sound. With Dimension Strings, you have so many elements in so many variations of combining and mixing parts together with articulations. The details are mind-boggling. For example, the legato playing on sounds is excellent. Under the advanced tab setting in the Pro version, you have a setting called “interval threshold”. As you bring the setting down, the connectivity increases for broader legato melodies. Bring the setting up for faster rhythms. Just more fun stuff to make everything more realistic. Conclusion: I have scored, composed and worked with many string libraries. The Dimension Strings I and II libraries are absolutely amazing and a must-have for both serious composers and beginners. There are a lot of features that can be overwhelming, but even using the libraries on a very basic level will give you great sounding strings. My only negative is the interface colors. They are very bland and could be a little more exciting, considering all the cool plug-ins on the market. That’s just my taste, but has nothing to do with the excellent quality of the sound. g Rating: 10/10
I have scored, composed and worked with many string libraries. The Dimension Strings I and II libraries are absolutely amazing and a must-have for both serious composers and beginners.
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What’sHappening
By Lori Barth
BMI Vice President Film, TV & Visual Media Relations Doreen Ringer-Ross presents BMI composer Rick Baitz with a certificate of appreciation during the reception celebrating 10 years of the “Composing for the Screen” workshop
At the ASCAP Lovefest in September, L-R: Mike Love, ASCAP’s Loretta Munoz, Lori Barth, Sam Hollander and Suzie Katayama
Conductor Amy Andersson’s newly formed Orchestra Moderne NYC debuted with the concert “Journey to America: From Repression to Freedom (Part 1)” at Carnegie Hall on October 7th featuring composers Lolita Ritmanis, Steven Lebetkin, and Peter Boyer
Composer Tamar-kali and director Dee Rees attend the screening of their film Mudbound at the New York Film Festival
Shown at the ASMAC Seminar featuring Fletcher Beasley on November 2, 2017 are, L-R: Bruce Miller and Fletcher Beasley
ASCAP composer and board member Bruce Broughton receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from Soundtrack Cologne BMI Composers Win Global Success at World Soundtrack Awards, L-R: Terence Blanchard, Dustin O’Halloran, BMI’s Doreen Ringer-Ross and BMI composers Joe Kraemer and David Shire
ASCAP’s Rachel Perkins with Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein after their win for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme music award for Stranger Things 10
ASCAP’s Michael Todd shared his Film/TV expertise during the “Business of Sync” panel at Bogotá Music Market talking about the music today, production, music for picture, music supervision, publishing and licensing and the business environment powering the sync world
What’sHappening
By Lori Barth
L-R: ASCAP’s Michael Todd, composer Michael Giacchino, ASCAP’s Shawn LeMone and composer agent Maria Machado at Michael Giacchino’s 50th Birthday Celebration at Royal Albert Hall ASCAP Film/TV’s Michael Todd and Jennifer Harmon celebrating Dr. Lynne Lummel’s (Former ASCAP EVP / Chief Transformation Management Officer) Mark Visionary Award honor during the Production Music Association’s PMC 2017
BMI 8th Annual Golf Tournament to Benefit Education Through Music tournament’s first place winners, L-R: Evan Winiker, Rick Krim, Brian Malouf and BMI’s Ray Yee
Danny Elfman’s Music From the Films of Tim Burton in Paris. L-R: BMI’s Vice President, Film, TV and Visual Media Relations Doreen Ringer-Ross with award-winning BMI composer Danny Elfman
Mychael Danna Provided Keynote Address at Fourth Annual Production Music Association Conference. L-R: Mychael Danna, BMI Vice President Film, TV & Visual Media Relations Doreen Ringer-Ross and journalist and Film/TV music historian Jon Burlingame
David Newman Thrills Audiences With John Williams’ Raiders of the Lost Ark at the Hollywood Bowl on August 4th. The performance was synched live to the iconic film, featured the LA Philharmonic. Pictured L-R: BMI composer David Newman and BMI’s Doreen Ringer-Ross Great time at Silva Screen Records’ 30th birthday bash on Novemeber 3, 2017. L-R: Thomas Mikusz, Lori Barth, Hèléne Muddiman, Chandler Poling
At the Sundance Music and Sound Design Labs at Skywalker Sound are, L-R: narrative lab creative advisor and BMI composer Thomas Newman, BMI Vice President Film, TV & Visual Media Relations, Doreen Ringer-Ross, and writer and film historian Jon Burlingame
Pictured L-R back row: Documentary composer lab fellows Ryan Rumery and Adam Schoenberg, BMI’s Doreen Ringer-Ross, documentary composer lab fellow Darryl Jones, creative advisor Todd Boekelheide, Sundance Film Music Program director and BMI composer Peter Golub and documentary composer lab fellow Rebecca Dale. L-R front row: BMI composer and creative advisor George S. Clinton, editor and creative advisor Toby Shimin and Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program director Tabitha Jackson 11
NICHOLAS BRITELL INTERVIEWED BY L O R I B A R T H
Academy Award-nominated composer Nicholas Britell is known for his music from Moonlight, The Big Short, 12 Years a Slave, Free State of Jones, and the recently released Battle of the Sexes, among others. Innovative and fresh in his approach to film scoring, he has quickly made a name for himself. One morning, over coffee, we discussed his career and his journey. Score: Where did you come from?Tell us a quick version of your story. You were a hedge fund manager, you attended Harvard and Juilliard. Nicholas: I’m from New York City. When I was very young I saw the movie Chariots of Fire, and I was obsessed with the theme from that movie. There was this old upright piano in our apartment on West End Avenue, and I went over and tried to figure out how to play the theme and I asked my parents for piano lessons. I started playing and I just loved it. Over the years I thought seriously about being a concert pianist professionally, and I did go to Juilliard for 12
The Alchemy Of Film Music the Pre-College division, and we also moved to Westport, Connecticut, and so I went to a high school named Hopkins in New Haven and commuted to Juilliard. Then I went to Harvard for college and studied psychology and I was in a hip-hop band. I’ve had a lot of different musical adventures. When I was in a band, we really thought seriously about trying to make that work. Our band eventually did break up but that was a great experience. When I was in college a very dear friend of mine, who tragically passed away a few years ago in a car accident, was director Nick Louvel. He was making a feature film at Harvard when we were there called Domino One and he asked me if I wanted to score it. That was in 2001, I guess. I’d always loved film music and I had composed and I had taken composition class at Juilliard. I’d always been doing so much music but you can’t actually score a film until you have a film and have the opportunity. I had a blast; we worked together and this 2 ½ hour movie was made on a $10,000 budget, which unfortunately never came
out, which is sort of what I discovered when I graduated college. We had this band and we thought something might happen with it and the band broke up, and I had this movie I had scored and I thought I could do that and the movie never came out. I serendipitously interviewed for a job in New York and I interviewed with someone at a finance firm who was himself a composer. It was just one of these weird kismet moments where he said, “You know what? We’ll figure out something for you to do here.” I had traded stocks a bit in the 90s, like a personal account, and traded a bit and I had read a lot of books; I was interested in how stocks and options worked but I had never professionally personally traded at a firm. I’d done some internships. I ended up becoming a currency trader and while I was doing that, well you know, the film industry takes a long time and you never know exactly how these paths are going to converge. I think it’s a very sort of circuitous route these things take sometimes. I used to do a lot of short films, I had a lot of friends Continued on Next Page
who were directors so I would score their shorts during those years. I used to give concerts for our investors; I always did music. Then I met Natalie Portman in college and we became very dear friends. We had a very, very tight-knit group of friends in school and we always stayed in touch. We’re all like a family really, in a way. We have these really wonderful friends. Even when I was working on projects she would always encourage me and it was really a wonderful thing. She did a short film called Eve and she asked me to be in it as an oncamera pianist, and there was a piece of music of mine in that film. It was the first project that went to a film festival that had music of mine in it. She did one of the vignettes that’s in the movie New York I Love You, and so I worked on that with her and scored that. I am also a business partner and artistic collaborator with her husband Benjamin Millepied. He’s an incredible choreographer; he choreographed Black Swan and is the founder of the LA Dance Project. I think one of the greatest things is when you get to collaborate with friends. When you have that ability to have an artistic partnership with friends and when you get to learn together and explore the creative projects together, it’s so satisfying. I feel very lucky to have that chance and Natalie is so inspiring. And then after working on those projects, I scored her feature film debut, A Tale of Love and Darkness, as well. Score: After being a hedge fund manager, how did you get to do The Big Short? Nicholas: That was another thing that was a total coincidence. I worked at trading but at some point I realized I just desperately wanted to do film music full-time and I think that was the leap where I said to myself, “This is the only thing that will really make me happy, if I’m only doing this.” So, I quit my job and exclusively started focusing on music. And there’s that feeling where I think for everyone, it’s an exploration, it’s sort of an adventure. You don’t really know where it’s all going to go. But for me, it’s really the thing I do that makes me happiest. I love it. I was scoring a lot of short films, I was scoring a lot of independent films,
working on any project I really could. I even wrote telephone hold music. I did everything. I did whatever I could do. But when The Big Short happened I had collaborated with Plan B Entertainment, Jeremy Kleiner and Dede Gardner, on 12 Years A Slave where I did all the on-camera writing and researching and all the music that was on-camera in the film. They reached out to me about The Big Short. I read the script and I thought it was incredible and I had a call with Adam McKay. We talked a little bit and he liked my music and we just started having these musical conversations where he’d ask, “What is the sound of dark math?” because he was trying to figure out and musically convey the ideas within The Big Short. We started working together and he actually didn’t know I had worked trading currencies and on Wall Street, which I was very happy about. He hired me because he liked my music. Score: Wikipedia describes you as a composer, musician, songwriter and a film producer. Is that the right order? Nicholas: I’m a composer first. That’s really what I love. A composer and a pianist. I guess that’s what I aspire to be. And everything else I have done over the years I feel have been learning experiences. With producing, I think partly because of some of the investing experience I had, I was interested in how you actually make a movie: Technically what goes into making this very complicated, collaborative creative endeavor come into being. A very dear friend of mine, Helen Estabrook, who I also went to college with (and a big fan of our band), we’d always had these conversations about the making of a film. She, at the time was working with Jason Reitman, and she reached out to me about this script called Whiplash. I read it and I thought it was amazing and the idea was to actually make a short film as a proof of concept and see if we made a short film by taking one scene from the featured script, we could use that as a demonstration of Damien Chazelle’s abilities and we could hopefully raise some money for a feature. I actually financed the short, which was not a huge amount of money, but I viewed it as almost a tuition payment, an opportunity to learn
something and to get a really amazing chance to collaborate with some people I really respected so much and I thought were so talented, and to see behind-the-scenes, on what you do to set these companies up, how does this work, how you structure things. That was my first experience with film producing. I think it’s so helpful as a composer to have that experience because I really feel when you understand all the different departments in a film and you understand what goes into the making of a film from different points of view, for me, at least, it better helps me understand what I need to do as a composer, what does the movie need. And it helps you think about the solutions to certain questions. It’s interesting. Score: Did this help you with your communication with the filmmakers? Nicholas: It certainly helped me with understanding the needs of filmmakers—really getting a sense of process and I think just understanding the lifecycle of a film. In a lot of ways, there’s a sense of rhythm to a film as it’s coming into being. And the music is a part of that. There’s a time and a place but there’s a process that parallels with other processes. And I think having a job not in film gave me a sense of thinking about all the variables involved in different endeavors. It certainly led me to questions like, how did you finance the movie, how did you produce the movie? Score: What’s your multi-media production company about? Nicholas: Benjamin and I, quite a few years ago, along similar lines we wanted to create a vehicle through which we could produce and create any project we wanted. We worked on a variety of different things. We’ve made dance films in collaboration with other dance projects, for example. We’ve done some interesting commercial projects, and we’ve done some live immersive events. There’s been a range of things. It’s called Amoveo. That company is just a symbol of my collaboration with Benjamin and it’s really an open canvas for anything we want to make together. Score: I’d like to talk about Moonlight and your relationship with Barry Jenkins. It’s interesting how you two worked together. Continued on Next Page 13
Britell Interview Continued from Page 13
Nicholas: I met Barry through Jeremy Kleiner, this was during the production on The Big Short. I was talking to Jeremy one day and he really got quite emotional talking about this project he was working on called Moonlight. He said it was a brilliant script and he asked me if I would love to read it, and I said, “Of course I’d love to read it.” I read the script and I was just blown away by it. It was one of the most beautiful, poetic things I’d ever read and I said, “Could I meet Barry?” We ended up meeting for coffee in downtown LA and we had this multihour long conversation. Coffee turned into some glasses of wine and I think we just realized we had a real connection. I believed so strongly in the script and I had seen Medicine for Melancholy and I loved it, and it just seemed like a real exciting possibility there. We right away had potential ideas for what might be something worth trying.And right from the beginning those conversations started happening. The collaboration was really close. Score: He came to New York to your studio and worked with you. Nicholas: Exactly, which is really the way I like to work. He would come to New York and we would just sit in my studio for hours watching the movie together and we would order Shake Shack. I think the key thing in that collaboration is (and I feel this about all directors), you’re sitting together and you’re watching things together and feeling things together. And music is such a mystical art in a lot of ways, especially film music where you really don’t know what’s going to work until you try it up against the picture. Ideas that sound great on paper, once you try them up against the picture can be totally wrong because they don’t feel right or they don’t do what you want them to do. Being in close proximity where you are both looking at the same things, you’re both hearing the same things, and also where you have the ability to try things out together, I think that is the key. And early on Barry and I had this conversation about “chopped-andscrewed music,” which he is a huge fan of. This is a style of southern hip14
hop where you take tracks and you slow them down, and when you slow it down the pitch goes down and you get this really deep enriched audio texture. We thought what if we did this with a classical score? What if I wrote and recorded music and took my own recordings and bent them? We tried it out and it worked and it felt like it was an extension of the film in a way where we utilized that in a way of evolving some of the musical ideas. If Barry and I hadn’t have been working so closely, maybe we wouldn’t have tried it out. There were moments when we were working together and in certain scenes in the film I would be writing them in front of Barry at the piano and he would encourage me. What was so exciting about working with Barry is he loves music and he also loves the way music interacts with picture. There were lots of places in the movie where we didn’t want music, the sound of the film was the score there. It was just silence. But then there were certain places where he really wanted the music to soar. Score: How do you like to work? What is your setup? Nicholas: My wife, Caitlin Sullivan, who’s an amazing cellist, (and we actually went to Juilliard Pre-College together) and I live right next to Lincoln Center. I have a studio in our apartment that I built. I have a grand piano that I play a lot, but then in the studio room I have a computer and I use the same keyboard controller I used to use in my band that I’ve had for 17 years. I do recording in the studio too. I have a Neumann mic that I like to use. I’ve gotten to the place where I record things myself; I do a lot of the audio engineering as well, because back in the day with the band I would produce a lot of hiphop beats and produce a lot of the music so I’m very involved in the sound. Score: Which platform do you use: Protools, Logic, Cubase? Nicholas: I use Ableton Live. We all use Protools obviously for recording the bigger sessions, but in the studio, I use Ableton Live for everything. My studio manager, Chris Ruskis, is also an EDM producer and years ago he brought Ableton Live by and said, “Hey, you gotta check this out.” And I didn’t use it for a while but I think one day I was frustrated with something
and I opened Ableton Live up and just started playing around with it and I got hooked on it. It’s an incredible tool not only for production but for live. I use it for performances I do now, for example, we’ve done some Moonlight live performances and I’ll be running the effects through it. Score: You have an eclectic range of influences. Rachmaninoff, Gershwin, Phillip Glass and Zbigniew Priesner, along with Quincy Jones and Dr. Dre. What are some of the things you have taken from each one? Nicholas: I think being a composer in the 21st century in 2017, the whole world is open to you today. It’s really interesting to think about what it would have been like to compose in different eras in the past because I think in some ways it’s a very different time to be a composer right now, where there are no boundaries. There’s no form you have to follow. There’s no rules, there’s no style we have to adhere to. If you were living in Mozart’s time, there’s a certain galant style of classical music that he pushed the boundaries of and expanded. But at the same time there was still this style that people generally wrote in and today it’s not the case. On the one hand, it’s an exciting opportunity, and also, at times, I think it can be dizzying because there’s so many things to do. And for me, I love so many types of music and it’s okay to love lots of kinds of music. Score: Well, I think it creates something very unique and original being able to pull from all these sources. Nicholas: There’s more to experiment with, there’s more to explore. And especially today, I think more than ever, not just let’s say the compositional but the harmonic or melodic structures. For example, we were just talking about Ableton Live, experimenting with sound and just seeing what sounds can do. Because If you think over the history of let’s say Western music, like different instruments evolved, but instruments are technologies themselves. The piano was a big technological apparatus that was invented. It wasn’t always there. And I think that there’s new tools that lead us to new sound and new boundaries that are even wider. There is this huge array of possibilities and actually Continued on Page 22
L E S S O N S L E A R N E D
Are Video Game Scores Coming To LA? By Sarah Kovacs
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n Friday, October 20th , I had the privilege of watching my client and friend Garry Schyman conduct and record a live orchestra for his upcoming virtual reality video game entitled TORN (created by Aspyr Media) on the Newman Scoring Stage at Fox. What makes this newsworthy? It was recorded with the union, as in on contract, in Los Angeles, at Fox, with the AFM. It wasn’t a dark date, it wasn’t a Fi-core session. This was a really big deal. I represent several composers who regularly score video games and Friday was the first time I had been to an LA AFM recording session for a game in a very (very) long time. The relationship between the AFM and Video Game Industry is a strained one. There are a variety of reasons for this, but truthfully, I’m more interested in looking forward toward the future, so I’ll leave it at that. What is important here is this: the negotiations I was recently a part of with Garry showed me that attitudes are shifting. Full discloser: TORN was not the first game score to be recorded in LA under the new agreement. I don’t intend to gloss over the hard work and dedication of those in the game audio community who have been doing this already. People like Paul Lipson patiently forged the way for the Franchise Buy-Out Agreement (2014-2016 AFM Video Game/Interactive Media Agreement)—the same one we used. Paul and others, like my friend Noah Gladstone, use it as often as possible. This foundation of trust and respect with the AFM has created space for future conversations like these to take place. I made a list of the valuable lessons I took away from this experience: 1. Don’t make assumptions based on the past
Just because there hasn’t been an influx of union game scoring in LA doesn’t mean it’s not possible. We knew it would be important to go into this negotiation without the baggage of the past hovering over us. We focused on what we wanted to accomplish together and what that success would mean. Assuming things won’t go well because it hasn’t for others, doesn’t mean that will be your experience. For us it was an extremely collaborative and positive one.
2. Ask for what you need (and be ready to educate)
The agreement wasn’t usable as is, but we could use it as a starting point. The game developer was on board to sign it, there was just one area we needed to adjust. We identified what that was and backed up our reasons with facts while kindly educating them about why our situation was unique. 3. Find an ally on the inside (hint: John Acosta)
Contrary to popular belief, there are folks at the AFM who would very much like to have this work and are eager to establish relationships with game developers, publishers and composers. They don’t always make that obvious, so reaching out is key. They are eager to hear from us and can help influence stubborn decision makers. 4. Be ready to compromise
Negotiation 101: don’t expect to get everything you want. We didn’t get exactly what we wanted but we got close enough. For us, “close enough” was still a win. The mere fact that we were able to even have a negotiation and come to a mutual agreement means we can do it again. Giving up something doesn’t mean you lose. On the contrary, it was opening a door for the future.
Just because there hasn’t been an influx of union game scoring in LA doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
5. Progress takes time
One scoring session isn’t going to bring all of video game recording to LA. The AFM is a long-standing institution where change does not happen overnight (or even over years), but it is happening. The more we share about these successes the more common they will become. Friday’s session made me feel energized and hopeful that maybe this could be the start of a whole new era. I could tell that feeling was mutual too. There was genuine appreciation between us all. Everyone left that day pledging many more to come. (Special thanks to John Acosta for his commitment to this partnership, to Ray Hair for taking game scoring seriously and approving this agreement and to Rick Baptist and Linda Rapka for their support. Special thanks to Neill Roger and Dave Prout of Aspyr Media for not running for the hills when we asked them to record this score union and to David Lowe for helping us pull this off.) 15
SCL Emmy Reception The Society of Composers & Lyricists held a reception on Friday, September 8, at The Table at NeueHouse in Los Angeles to honor all the Music Emmy Nominees for Creative Arts. It was a lovely evening with fellow composers and lyricists.
The Nominees Group
L-R: SCL President Ashley Irwin, Christopher Farrell and Jack D. Elliot
L-R: Tom Scott, Charles Bernstein, Bruce Miller
L-R: SEASAC’s Erin Collins, Jeff Cardoni, Danny Lux, BMI’s Ray Yee
L-R: Bonnie Cacavas, Dennis and Leslie Dreith
L-R: David Kontesz, Sharon Farber, Don Peake, Judi Pulver
L-R: Les and Terry Brockmann, Vivek Maddala, Lynn Kowal, Fletcher Beasley 16
L-R: Adryan Russ, Hunter Freberg, SCL President Ashley Irwin
L-R: Vivek Maddala, Michael Kramer, Kris Bowers and SCL President Ashley Irwin
L-R: Miriam and Ramón Balcázar, Dennis C. Brown, Chris Monzo
L-R: ASCAP’s Brian Reyes, James Jacoby and ASCAP’s Jennifer Harmon
L-R: Ray Costa of Costa Communications, Inc., Alexander Vangelos of First Artists Management and their client, Emmy Nominee Rael Jones (Suite Francaise) L-R: Kristopher Carter and wife Lily Wong
L-R: Christopher Knight, Russ Howard, Defiant Public Relations CEO Sabrina Hutchinson, Mark Phillips and Chris Dampier, Associate Director, Film, TV & Visual Media Relations at BMI
L-R: Jack D. Elliot, Rickey Minor, Lori Barth
L-R: BMI’s Michael Crepezzi, BMI’s Barbie Quinn and BMI’s Chris Dampier
L-R: Mac Quayle, Lynn Kowal, Jana Davidoff and Jeff Russo
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The Importance Of The Music Contractor Continued from Page 1
going to bat for composers, but more like I’m lucky enough to hand pick the world’s most talented artists to collaborate together. I love being in the middle of that process which is what gives roots to my relationships with both the composer and the musician.” Another question posed was how they think the business is doing in Los Angeles given the amount of runaway scores and pressures to downsize. Peter began with, “I tend to be a very positive and forward-thinking person; I actually feel that there is more opportunity today in Los Angeles than there was several years ago. Indeed, the business model of the past has changed, and new media companies have vast opportunities to work cheaper in various parts of the world, but I believe that everybody wants to have the very best quality for their project and with proper education and guidance, I have been very successful in keeping many projects scoring union in Los Angeles. I’m hopeful that with the amount of new media and new industry projects (i.e., live-to-picture performances, live shows, video games, etc…) that the opportunities will abound for musicians and composers for years to come. The challenge that we face is modernizing without cannibalizing an industry that has been established for well over 60 years via various guilds. We must learn to be proactive and ingenious in helping to promote the great talents of both instrumentalists and vocalists that are truly unique to Los Angeles. I welcome the challenge and have designed my company around the various hurdles and obstacles we face!” Reggie says, “To be honest, the pressure to downsize is not nearly as disturbing as runaway scoring. Downsizing means some musicians are working. Maybe not as many as I would like, for as long as I would like, but at least people are working. Runaway scoring is evidence that we have not done a good job in making a case to producers for why the work should be done here in LA. We have not negotiated effectively; taking into account the very real needs of the 18
producer in such a way that they can see that scoring here can meet those needs. Negotiating means both sides give something so the production and recording process can be served.” Gina expresses the opinion that, “Given the amount of work that has gone overseas in the past decade, we continue to remain positive by building relationships with film companies and going to bat to make even the smallest of projects work. It’s my hope that by dedicating myself to building an excellent band and enthusiastic, stressfree work environment, I am doing my part in keeping Los Angeles a desirable place to record.” When asked what are some of the problems music contractors face these days, Peter says, “The main problem we face is the undervaluing of our musicians, whilst we simultaneously endeavor to serve the needs of our clients with shrinking budgets. These challenges help to create new opportunities for us to cater to the specific needs of our client base and to help find solutions and creative options that meet the budget limitations, as well as the creative ideals that our clients strive for.” Reggie’s thoughts are, “As always the main problem is getting the right butts in the seats for the job. But that is not really a problem, that is the job. The biggest problem, as I see it, is not having enough jobs for the talented musicians in this town. I know of too many good musicians who should be working all the time. And it’s not that jobs aren’t available; all too often it’s ‘union’ jobs that are not available. Not enough serious work has been done to find the answers to these serious issues. This threatens not only the livelihood of musicians, but the preservation of an art form native to the film industry.” Gina points out that, “One of the main problems we face is trying to work within our budget limitations while keeping with union agreements and rates. Being that we are a liaison between film studios, musicians, and the union, we have a lot of people that we need to make happy. That is a constant challenge.” When asked about the importance of loyalty in the business today, and whether young composers used to
working on their computers recognize the value of having the best people in their orchestras, Peter says, “Having started out as a composer and working in the lonely environment of a Midi studio, I wholeheartedly believe that musicians are the lifeblood of a composer’s musical soul. The musicians who work for my composers tend to have lifelong relationships, some starting back as far as college, others newly minted and a composer relies upon the unique artistic color of individual musicians to capture his or her musical essence. Not all musicians, nor all composers, are alike; they each contain the DNA of an exceptional musical gene. One can often hear this artistry come to life on screen, through the careers of many composers, whether it be an elegant cello solo, a heroic horn solo or a haunting flute melody, these musicians carry the fibers of the composer’s music to the hearts of those who hear their performances. Though loyalty is a remarkable and honorable trait, a composer must maintain the highest professionalism and skill placed within his music. One’s loyalty needs to be to one’s art first and foremost, and no one other than the composer should ultimately dictate the final outcome of their process.” Reggie adds, “In the business of performing music, there has always been a dynamic give and take between loyalty and quality. The composers I choose to work with enjoy working with musicians, and have developed a measure of loyalty to those musicians. If and when needed, I believe it’s my job to provide a practical balance between loyalty to the musicians, and loyalty to the quality of the performance. Many composers want to look out at the orchestra and see familiar, trusted musicians who can deliver stellar performances. In many cases these musicians have become friends. But there are times when friendship should give way to quality considerations. At those times, it’s my job to help guide the composer to the best possible choices. But it’s important to remember that the composer has the final say in these decisions. “When I work with young composers unaccustomed to working with groups of musicians, I try to match the music required with musicians who have the requisite talents and skills. But I Continued on Next Page
C D R E V I E W
Cyril Morin New Dawn
Massive Music Genre: Jazz Fusion Available Amazon, iTunes, Apple Music downloads Diggers Factory for vinyl This CD is a stepback into the genre of jazz fusion with all original compositions written and arranged by SCL Member Cyril Morin. Morin has captured the essence of what made this style great and carries the songs with his guitar playing. A good listen.
Past Presidents Remember Continued from Page 6
believed a guild’s purpose to be—to help educate young writers and guide them in the proper and ethical ways of doing business to help proliferate our craft. We also made arrangements with some of the best institutions—UCLA, USC and Berklee—to help their students be eligible for our program and in several instances arranged concert presentations of our members’ music with their performing organizations. We were able to have such composers as David Raksin, Jerry Goldsmith, Bill Conti and others present or conduct their music at these events. I enjoyed serving as president of The SCL and I am delighted to see the organization continue to grow and flourish. And what an incredible contribution Lori Barth has made to The SCL—assembling, editing, writing and keeping The Score the fine publication it has remained for so many years. Congratulations Lori. We will all miss you. g g g
MARK WATTERS
The Importance Of The Music Contractor Continued from Page 18
also try to find musicians who have a commonality with the composer. In my opinion, it makes for a more productive and pleasant recording experience. Life is too short to spend long hours in the studio in unappealing, unproductive situations.” Gina said, “Loyalty is important to all the composers that I work with. Seeing the familiar faces of experienced players on recording sessions brings confidence, comfort, and ease. Composers often request specific players, and I’m always happy to honor those relationships first while at the same time create opportunities to introduce other talented faces to our community. This allows for mentorship between newer and veteran players and is how I think we will develop longevg ity in the recording business.
1999-2001
The outgoing president, Jay Chattaway, approached me and asked if I wanted to take it on. I was extremely honored and, with the approval of the past presidents, I was approved. It was challenging but extremely rewarding. The most difficult aspect of the job at that point in The SCL’s history was that the organization was at a crossroads as to what it wanted to be. Some felt that it should continue with its original intent and be a voice for change in the industry both within the music community and how that community was perceived and treated by those who hired us. Others felt that since the organization had been unsuccessful in its attempt to become a sanctioned union, that it should simply be a social and educational organization, thus avoiding controversial issues such as working conditions, cue sheet credit, membership qualifications, etc.
Keeping both sides of this debate happy was difficult and I realized that it was impossible to make both sides happy. The other difficult aspect was the time commitment. It was difficult to perform all of the duties that fell to the president without a staff. That challenge still exists today, I’m afraid. The SCL was barely hanging on financially during that time. In fact, for several months, I personally paid the organization’s bills. Myself and a few key board members went to the PROs and explained our situation and they generously increased their assistance. Also, as the organization moved away from re-opening the efforts to become a union, it broadened its outreach to new members, thus increasing our revenue and securing our financial future. g g g
RAY COLCORD 2001-2003
Dan Foliart wrote: “My predecessor Ray Colcord’s passion for composers’ rights was unparalleled and his tireless work to try to achieve equality in the greater entertainment community with collective bargaining was admired by all of his peers. He would always come to board meetings armed with informative contracts or essays as well as an assortment of writings that educated us to challenges of the day. But beyond that, he had invariably given a great deal of thought on what the solutions might be. The membership should be aware that he was largely responsible for The SCL screenings, of which we are the beneficiaries today. Ray only served for two short years, but his impact on the organization was mighty.” g g g
DAN FOLIART
2003-2013
Then president, Ray Colcord, had spoken to several candidates for the job and as it turned out, I had the inclination and passion to do it. At that point, in 2001, I had served on the board for sevContinued on Next Page
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Danny Elfman Receives Max Steiner Award
SCL Premier Partners SCL members can find out the member discount details and how to contact Partners on our website.
Danny Elfman accepts the Max Steiner Award during the 10th Annual Hollywood in Vienna gala. He stands next to Renate Brauner (City of Vienna Commissioner) and Sandra Tomek (Founder and Artistic Director of Hollywood in Vienna)
Past Presidents Remember Continued from Page 19
eral years and saw how things worked. The job was time-consuming and I was still actively composing for the television series 7th Heaven, but I was able to manage my time in an efficient manner. Ray had left the organization on such solid ground, I simply had to add my touch to an already smooth-running machine. It’s always been my ambition to build collegiality and community. I think that the organization grew in both membership and camaraderie while I was there. I’m proud that we were able to enlist our New York compatriots during my tenure. I certainly had a great deal of help
from several key people from the East coast who remain great friends today. I’ve also had the utmost respect for those who have inspired us. During my presidency, our board created the Ambassador Program. Here’s the preamble: The SCL created the Ambassador Program to recognize and acknowledge a select group of composers and lyricists without whose valuable contributions our profession would be less than it is; without whose creativity our artistic community would be lacking and without whose gift, our society would be deprived of wonderful music and song expressed by their genius. Their achievements will be used as the ultimate standard for future generations of film composers and songwriters. I’m particularly proud that we did that.
ALFRED MUSIC AUDIO PERCEPTION BANDZOOGLE BIG FISH AUDIO BLACK LION AUDIO CINEMATIC STRINGS CINESAMPLES COMMERCIAL SCORING WORKSHOP FOCAL PRESS AND ROUTLEDGE MUSIC GUERRILLA FILM SCORING GRAPHICALLY ENHANCED MANUALS JAN-AL-CASES LUDWIN MUSIC PUBLICATIONS MEGATRAX RECORDING STUDIOS MELROSE MAC MUSIC BUSINESS REGISTRY MY MUSIC MASTERCLASS NOTEFLIGHT PAGU BATONS PC AUDIO LABS PUREMIX THE RICHARD BELLIS MASTER SERIES SAMPLELOGIC SONIC FUEL STUDIOS SONOKINETIC SOUNDIRON SPITFIRE AUDIO TUNECORE UCLA EXTENSION
SCL AMBASSADORS BURT BACHARACH ALAN & MARILYN BERGMAN CARTER BURWELL GEORGE S. CLINTON CHARLES FOX ELLIOT GOLDENTHAL DAVE GRUSIN ARTHUR HAMILTON JAMES NEWTON HOWARD MARK ISHAM ROBERT LOPEZ & KRISTEN ANDERSON-LOPEZ JOHNNY MANDEL RANDY NEWMAN THOMAS NEWMAN MIKE POST LALO SCHIFRIN RICHARD SHERMAN DAVID SHIRE
ALAN SILVESTRI MARK SNOW MIKE STOLLER DIANE WARREN PATRICK WILLIAMS PAUL WILLIAMS MAURY YESTON
In Memoriam: VAN ALEXANDER RAY CHARLES HAL DAVID RAY EVANS EARLE HAGEN JACK HAYES JERRY LIEBER VIC MIZZY ROBERT SHERMAN
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD BILL CONTI QUINCY JONES
GINNY MANCINI
HONORARY LIFETIME MEMBERS
A moment from the closing gala at the XI Tenerife International Film Music Festival (FIMUCITÉ). L-R: Guest conductor Eimear Noone, Conductor and Composer (ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop alum), ASCAP’s Michael Todd, Artistic Director & Fimucité Conductor Diego Navarro, Composers Daniel Pemberton, Atli Orvarsson, Trevor Jones, Fimucité producer Pedro Merida and Richard Bellis 20
JAY L. COOPER, ESQ. JIM DiPASQUALE
CLINT EASTWOOD
DENNIS SPIEGEL JOHN WILLIAMS
SCL Events October 12—The Sounds of Analog Synthesizers with Michael Lehmann Boddicker, Westlake Pro. L-R: SCL President Ashley Irwin, Composer/Synthesizer Legend Michael Lehmann Boddicker, SCL Seminar Chair Fletcher Beasley
August 22 — Practical Recording Techniques for Composers and Songwriters Seminar, The Village. L-R: Musicians Tim Loo and Jim DiPasquale, Recording Engineer Brad Haehnel, SCL Seminar Chair Fletcher Beasley, Vocalist Ayana Haviv
October 26 — Annual Membership Meeting, The Garland L-R: SCL President Ashley Irwin with Songwriter Diane Warren
September 20—Boston Screening with Jeff Beal, Linwood Dunn L-R: Moderator Tim Greiving, Composer Jeff Beal
October 29— Thor: Ragnarok Screening with Mark Mothersbaugh, Linwood Dunn L-R: Moderator/SCL Board Member Christopher Farrell and Composer Mark Mothersbaugh September 21—Building Your Social Network, The Evergreen Stage. L-R: Margaux Sullivan, Beth Krakower, Tony Harris, SCL Seminar Chair Fletcher Beasley
Madonna Wade-Reed Continued from Page 8
figured out how important this is then they’re really not ready to send out their music and get into the business of placing their material. No supervisor has the spare time, or the desire, to manually enter your metadata for you because you didn’t bother to do it yourself. If you can’t be found, you can’t be licensed. Score: What is the difference between music supervision for television, cable and film? Madonna: Nothing. Sure, there are logistical differences, but at the end of the day the role is the same—to help g tell a story.
ASCAP At Filmfest Ghent 2017
Top Row, L-R: Blair Mowat, Volker Bertelmann aka Hauschka, ASCAP’s Shawn LeMone and Simon Greenaway, Composer Michael Abels. Bottom Row, L-R: Artistic Director and Fimucite Conductor Diego Navarro, Maestro Dirk Brosse and ASCAP’s Michael Todd
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Britell Interview Continued from Page 14
for me I think that is why I am drawn to film music and film because every film is a new adventure. Every film is a new avenue of exploration. Like The Big Short, you’re exploring this idea of dark math—is there some lie at the heart of the financial system? But then on Moonlight we’re exploring a boy and his journey, the poetry, the beauty, the sadness, the romance of his life. I think each of those clearly requires a different musical voice and a musical idea, and I love that challenge. I believe there are certain sounds for a film, certain musics that feel woven into the fabric of a movie. And certain things that could work but are not quite as closely linked, almost like a spiritual sense. And that’s the mysticism that maybe I was talking about before. It’s exciting to say to yourself, “We can do anything.” That’s where the collaboration comes in. It’s only with these conversations with directors where we sit there and say,“What are we feeling? How do you think this should evolve?”and it’s through that you try to focus your experiments. Score: You have a new release, Battle of The Sexes. Nicholas: I started working on that last year; actually during the period of time that Moonlight was coming out, I started work with Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. Again, it was one of those wonderful, close collaborations where I came out to LA and spent time
out here with them in the edit suite, and with Pam Martin, the editor, and we were all working together trying things out. It’s the story of the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, and on the surface, there is the public match and spectacle of an athletic adventure, but it’s also the personal journey of these two people. There’s the personal hopes and dreams of Billie Jean and there’s the personal struggles of Bobby Riggs, who was a gambling addict; he had a very difficult home life. He’s dealing with his own insecurities. One of the beautiful things about this movie is you see how these personal journeys are realized on this very public stage. For us, we had a lot questions about what do you do for a movie that is set in the 1970s? How should that sound? We wanted to approach it in a fresh, unique way. One of the initial approaches was, what if I wrote classical music on 1970s rock band instruments? We started doing some of that and then what if we expanded the orchestration, what if I added woodwind instruments? What if I added string instruments and we saw that the movie really responded to that. That was the thing—when being in the same room and trying things out together, you could just see that the movie expanded when the music felt that way. What actually happens in the course of the film is there is this evolution in the orchestra. It starts with somewhat of a smaller texture: there’s some synth textures, there‘s a small jazz band texture for Bobby Riggs with some woodwinds, Billie Jean has a theme that is an old analog synth that
is almost ambient of a feeling and then evolves. As the match is getting closer, you start feeling the orchestra. And eventually you’re hearing the 79-piece orchestra and that’s culminating in the match. A variation of the theme that you hear, for example, for Billie Jean’s personal theme, which is just done on a very hypnotic, quiet texture actually becomes a full big orchestra playing that theme. The film culminates into our original song “If I Dare,” written for the film by Sara Bareilles and myself. It was a remarkable experience getting to collaborate with Sara on this song. Sara has an amazing musicianship and phenomenal lyrical intuition. We were all so excited to be able to create an original song which evolved from the musical thematic landscape of the score. Score: In closing, how do you see the future? What do you want to do? Nicholas: I feel so blessed to do this. I feel so lucky to have the chance to work with people that I revere, admire and that inspire me. I always dreamed of writing music, and in particular film music. That’s really my love, the experience of sitting in a theatre and watching a movie and feeling the music. For me, I often feel that I love music more in the theatre than out of the theatre. I’m so drawn to that experience. I just hope I can keep doing this. Score: You have such an interesting style and such a fresh approach I can’t imagine that it’s not going to keep going. Thank you so much for talking to g The Score.
Lucas Richman Completes 20th Conducting Workshop for BMI
F
or the 20th year, award-winning BMI conductor and composer Lucas Richman has successfully lead a six-day intensive conducting workshop for an elite group of BMI composers. The final session was on July 22, when they conducted a 32-piece orchestra live to picture at The Bridge Recording in Glendale. Pictured at the BMI conducting workshop are L-R, back row: BMI’s Olivia Garcia, BMI composer Mike Simon, BMI’s Ray Yee, BMI composers Forrest Gray and Gabriel Hays, BMI’s Philip Shrut and BMI composers Duncan Thum and Zack Ryan. Front row: Music editor Chris Ledesma, BMI composers Becky Kneubuhl and Alexis Grapsas, BMI composer and conductor Lucas Richman, music contractor David Low, BMI composer Allyson Newman and BMI’s Evelyn Rascon
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M U S I C A L S H A R E S
BY CHARLES BERNSTEIN
Film Music: What A Trip!
A
ny piece of music can be thought of as a journey. Music begins someplace, it travels, and ends someplace. We feel as if ground has been covered. Time has been spent in transit. Music can whisk us away on an amazing trip! Or, maybe we just get taken for a ride. A musical journey can be soaring like a rocket, or more like a merry-goround… mildly amusing, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. Viewing music as a journey is not a new or novel idea. Music lovers have long known how to “navigate” through a composition. For one thing, there is often a “home” key, usually the beginning point of a song or tonal composition. It is no surprise that our most famous symphonies, concertos and sonatas have a “key” right in their name (such as Beethoven’s Symphony #5 in C Minor) that serves as a kind of address to let everyone know where the symphony “resides,” where it lives and where it will generally begin and end its travels. Practically all popular songs are patterned after the same kind of journey that a symphony takes. And like a symphony, a pop song will typically begin and end in a home key. This provides the listener with a kind of “round-trip” ticket that brings it home from its starting point. Film scores can also transport us on a kind of journey. But film music is not like a song or symphony. A film score is only one part of the larger journey—that journey being the film itself. And unlike other musical compositions, a film score isn’t one continuous musical statement. It’s rather a series of separate “cues” that stand apart from one another as distinct sonic islands. Obviously, it helps if these separate musical islands are related to one another—all part of an archipelago, so to speak. The art (and the heart) of film music is often about how the composer carries us on this musical journey from cue to cue with a sense of direction, purpose and momentum. Composer Jon Powell must have contemplated this challenge with the original Jason Bourne character when he propelled Bourne through a continuous series of suspenseful moments throughout a long film, with ever-increasing tension. Each separate cue needed to be tense, yet the sum total of the journey had to be a crescendo of tension. Or, consider the recent excursion that Michael Giacchino took us on in War for the Planet of the Apes (2017). Moving
through time, the audience traveled with the apes; and with each step, we became more and more identified with these animal beings. Two reasons had to be Andy Sirkus’ amazing performance as the ape Caesar, and Michael Giacchino’s very beautiful and sensitive score weaving a thread of delicacy, simplicity and melodic grace throughout the film. This thread went a long way toward binding us to (and humanizing) the non-humans. By the end of the film, we had traveled from seeing the apes as “others,” to basically identifying with them. So, how can a film score create that sense of movement from one musical moment to the next? How does a score produce that sense of journey? To begin with, it helps if the composer is able to view the cinematic territory as a traveler might—as having a start, a trajectory, and a finish—an itinerary. Filmmakers like to call this the “arc” of a film. If a composer knows what ground needs to be covered, then there is a better chance that the journey will be an effective and fulfilling one. On any good trip, there needs to be ample opportunity for wandering, improvising and adventuring, but the overall spirit and purpose of a trip is usually best established at the outset. Maybe some good questions for a composer to ask at the start of a scoring assignment might be, “Where is this all going? What’s at the end of the film’s journey? Is it triumph? Exhaustion? Satisfaction? Desolation?” And where are we beginning? What is the best vehicle to take us through this territory and how shall we proceed? Many a horror film begins with a “normal” situation that somehow goes bad. If the opening music doesn’t take into account where the story will end up, then we might be left with a misleading opening and a disjointed and confusing trek. If a story begins one way and ends up quite differently, it may be up to the music to act as a tour guide and to foreshadow and deftly prepare the audience for the journey at hand. Travel as a musical metaphor may actually have changed over recent years. Right now, we seem to be living in a moment when technology is severely altering how the culture thinks about geography, movement and time. Back in the era of Jane Austin (which was roughly the same as Beethoven’s), visiting another place required mounting a horse, getting into a carriage or other conveyance, and
The art (and the heart) of film music is often about how the composer carries us on this musical journey from cue to cue with a sense of direction, purpose and momentum.
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Musical Shares Continued from Previous Page
literally going from “here” to “there.” As Mr. Darcy says to Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, “And what is fifty miles of good road? Little more than half a day’s journey.” Time and space were quite concrete and measurable. Of course, today that jaunt would be nothing by freeway, and instantaneous by Skype. Jet travel, broadcasting and telecommunications were unimaginable in Austin’s time. Now, considering Google Earth, satellite communications and virtual reality, it’s possible to transcend time and space, and experience being both “here” and “there” at the same time—in real time. This sort of instantaneous and virtual travel may alter how we experience our world and create our arts. Certainly, Beethoven and John Adams will tend to cover musical ground differently. The highly structured musical journeys of Classicism first gave way to the more sensory trips of Romanticism, Impressionism, and then went on to various types of Modernism that seem to defy time, space and even gravity. In film music, consider Sophia Coppola’s 2006 film Marie Antoinette. The
film was set in France at the court of Louis XVI (late 1700s), yet she surprisingly chose current pop songs to use as score. So, we experience being both “here” and “there” at the same time, (contemporary America as well as France in 1770, which was actually the year of Beethoven’s birth). Clearly, the music that Sophia Coppola chose did not sound like Beethoven. This kind of musical time-warping famously showed up in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey as well. The film, which was made in the early 1960s, takes the audience on a trip to the future (2001). Yet, as the film depicts the “futuristic” station rotating in space, the sound track features the quaint music of Johan Strauss, rooted in another time and place, the Viennese waltz of the 19th century. So, music can be a great transporter; it is not only a powerful vehicle for geographical travel, but also as a means of time travel. For film composers, this can be a huge and powerful tool. Using music to transport the listener can be an endless adventure. But when it comes to any journey, it is always the traveler, not the travel, that is pivotal. “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” So, said Robert
Lewis Stevenson, who covered a lot of ground. Some advice to all composertravelers might be: Go anywhere and everywhere that the music and the film dictate. Pay close attention to whatever story the trip is telling. Observe the arc. Don’t be a stranger. Know what you’re seeking. Take what you find and make something glorious of it. Above all, embrace the journey! All composers are enchanted strangers in a strange land. g © Charles Bernstein 2017 www.charlesbernstein.com
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