All Access: John Powell - Episode 3

[Music] hi John Powell here again so soon [Music] all Access Hollywood well John thanks so much for sitting down again it's always a pleasure to chat so we've done an interview like we've done a couple of these but kind of country was kind of like a reboot and kind of going back to stuff that we've talked in the past so in case you don't know your history let's start with the people who don't know your history let's start with the beginning one was kind of the first memory you had where music kind of made an impact on you sorry first I'm trying to think if I mean the one I always talk about is hearing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto but probably there's other ones before that always wonder what they were remember hearing a lot of burt bacharach as a kid mm-hmm Stevie Stevie Wonder on the radio my father even there was a classical musician I think he kind of had enough of classical music so the kid anything I ever heard him listen to was kind of you know kind of like music yeah you wish would include all that stuff but yeah the the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto which to this day I still do like and the brocco filing cajeta those of my favorites and thus bailius and the Tchaikovsky and the bait hook the check Khachaturian is very good so I do like violin concertos and Danny Elfman's violin concerto is incredible yeah I'm no credit if anyone wants to hear a real garlic and chilli Danny wrote the incredible Vonnegut I thought you had his uh his big Tim Burton box set downstairs oh yeah yeah so like taking those I guess his early childhood influences growing up in the UK kind of what was that kind of childhood like that you were you playing in bands did you start writing your own pieces I very first sort of a I did with the violin was to write some music on it but mm probably involved a lot of open open string and then I probably just played for a while got got better at playing and enjoyed that then I then I started to listen to probably other music you know I remember Queen mmm love Queen yeah things like that so it's probably started got guitar so I play the guitar a bit and and writing things but I think really serious were playing Beatles songs and things on the piano with friends at school then really I didn't you know we're all classical really and it was very much about these this piece Hassocks Youth Orchestra that was a member of in actually this year we've got a 40th anniversary oh wow of the first concert the first official concert which I guess I'm a founding member I don't know so 2004 20th of October this year there's gonna be a concert at what was the Fairfield halls in in Croydon just outside London guys changed names to something but the original conductor and as many an original players I think of coming back you know try and take on my laughing mother's fifth symphony and I'm attempting at the moment to write a piece for it as well wow that's gonna be awesome so did you when did I guess at what point your life do you make I guess this is kind of start becoming a career aspect like an aspect for a career to is that always the goal what did you want I guess what did you want to be growing up was it always this this is kind of what you envisioned oh really I just wanted to play music mm-hmm and then some just be involved in music and as I I thought I was it was gonna be too tough for me too I mean I was 16 17 playing the violin and it wasn't really that I realized how much work it was gonna take to play properly and it's really extraordinary my work dedication you have to do to take it to do it professionally yeah so I think I started to slip into kind of one of the one of my other options and the other options were you know composing producing maybe I was just understanding maybe what the producer could do so but I I changed really from first subject kind of island viola to get approval to to go to college as a try and go to college as a composition students very quite hard to get in it first study composition in the four colleges in London before Conservatoire and they all turned me down except for Trinity College of Music so I always think actually and probably Trinity College was the best place for me so I went in onto that as a composer first study and then I did piano a second study which didn't go very well and then I managed to swap that over to percussion mmm which help didn't even know I wasn't a good player it gave me a lot of time to play with a lot of instruments yeah yeah experiment and you know know did things I did a bit of conducting in college and sort of start a little opera group for all the people who weren't in the college opera each year you know right there I kind of left out so we started doing that lots of modern music and some other people's music love glass Reich and things I was more into that and you know the kind of blue layers and things which is probably why I didn't get into the world of college and then I did four years of that and and it was it was wonderful because you just just got to play that had an electronic music studio I was there all the time and you basically every term you have to just come up with lots of new pieces and if you don't they'll throw you out but if you do and it's not terrible I guess I got to stay in ya and had a great teacher Richard Darnell who was this wonderful old sort of British symphony you know the old style but he was also very very open minded and worked in film as well so that's when really it started because we were there and he he had connections to the international film school down in Soho so a few us was sent down there to work you know turned sort of not we didn't really enroll we just went to meet with the you know film students and and then we got to write some music from these short films that they were doing most of which were terrible I remember one of them scores I did I gave it to them on you know in those days quarter-inch tape yeah and there's a thing about tail-out you always put tail out on quarter-inch tape because then other otherwise that if you put it tail at the front if you wind it back from to the front of the the tape prints through and you hear a pre echo okay yeah so you always put it out in the back but whoever transferred it at the school the student didn't know so they transferred the whole school backwards so I went to see the film and they'd actually use the whole school backwards the question is did you obviously was it not that noticeable it was going backwards kind of says something about the composition maybe it was rubbish they're like oh yeah this sounds perfect yeah whatever John did is working yeah so yes you got a taste of that and you mentioned your teachers I mean I just did a recent kind of article about mentorship and kind of the importance of mentors and so you know we were any other kind of influences of course I mean you can talk about Hans but any kind of early on in teachers that like that to kind of help push you in that direction oh yeah I mean everything sort of everything I've ever written and enjoyed and playing and sort of thought about as being kind of the the peak of musical that was to develop really within the Sussex Youth Orchestra mm-hmm and so Colin Metis who was the conductor of that is just he's one of the most important mentis to me which is why I'm very hard to write this piece because I'm writing a writing a piece for somebody that I must let me I haven't seen him in a long time but it was such an influence on me ya know it's like if he thinks this is then I don't know how I'll survive it but I have to try and write something that he'll think is worthy of I was playing so he was very very important he gave me you know every you know Christmas Easter summer we were we were rehearsing this Orchestra and doing different symphonies and and he had an amazing he was very strict very tough he did not treat the orchestra like much kids at all he taught them they treated them very seriously so but he will he would also back it up with great musical a hugely great musical understanding so he was one of the most incredible educators and then obviously yeah Tony at you know several teachers at college you know the electronic music teacher was fantastic I mean all sorts of people really and people you work with my friend Gavin yeah I mean you and Gavin you know go way back yeah and his father you know he's a great songwriter mm-hmm that was it was wonderful to be around and then I got I got some gigs working in jingles yes right company and rain and then you start to hang out with other composers and I was working for other composers as well as doing way and stuff and that's when I met hands mm-hm and Patrick Doyle they're both they were various writers there so you know then that suddenly becomes a possibility I haven't really thought of doing film I was really just doing advertising because it paid and it's very hard to take a you know an education in composition and make money so yeah I don't have to boil everything down to you know advertising probably was a good school to just kind of train you to get down to boil it down tears down the core of what you needed to get to right yeah yeah and learning the communication skills with people who you know the famous one is can it can you make it sound more like an avocado I don't know if that's they ever actually being said but that's the kind of the gate I certainly heard chocolatey can you make it sound more chocolate chocolatey yeah today how would you make it sound chocolatey Oh so at that point you're working you know of course with Patrick and Hans how did that transition happen where you left the UK and came to the United States when that come and what made you decide to okay time to leave and start a life over there well we Gavin and I had been working a lot with our very good friend Michael Petri he was an artist and we've done installation art pieces a lot of them and performance art pieces so even though we were making money in jingles and we'd actually even started our own company in Soho doing that we also were doing all of this kind of crazy stuff with Michael and we one of the things that he did was get a commission in born at the equivalent of the National Gallery of Germany and they commissioned him as an artist and they said what do you want to do and he said I'd like to write an opera so he came to us and said you want to write an opera and so we did the three of us wrote an opera together i'm gavin my music and he did the libretto and the book and the world and then we it's a small sample and so we're actually next year i'm gonna we're digging that up and we gonna rerecord it and then trying to get some performances of that cuz it was fun and I remember thinking I'd met with hands and and he'd said he said you know if you wanna come out to Hollywood we've got there's a lot going on so I need some help which was very exciting but I remember thinking I don't know if I'm ready yeah I'm not sure if I'm kind of phone I don't want to go too early and not be know how much shops really so are you like afraid of failing like going out there and just like falling on your face no I was afraid of not having the kind of the the technical side of it down I knew I knew that when you know he'd introduced me to his world of kind of samples and everything I mean I had been very technical before then but when I saw when I work with hands a few times you know it was an amazing kind of realization that there's just another level of technique right of the sort of the more this what everybody does now but at that time was very unusual and I realized I needed to get up a level and so and I had plenty of stuff going on in London with Gavin as well so and then we got this commission to do the operon and fish in the Opera and getting through it I kind of remember thinking okay I think I'm now I'm ready so then Gavin and like basically sort of you know flipped a coin and see who go first and I went first and got everything organized and then he came out sometimes and we sort of swapped around a bit yeah came out and see just to see what the lay of the land was and yeah before you knew I was I was kind of working and then Gavin was working but he didn't really enjoy it as much so he he went home after a few years and I'm still you those early days at media ventures was it intimidating were you you feel kind of in your element right off the bat or was it easy to kind of grasp it yeah I mean I suppose it's intimidated but no it was exciting and difficult and there's a lot of very good composers there so you know there's this kind of environment where you are both blessed with the ability to be able to sit there at 3 o'clock in the morning and talk to somebody else about the difficulties of writing this particular queue and right but then there's also lots of other people who you know are up for every job as well so how you get ahead it's all really it was it was really about you know my relationship with hands I admired him so much I wrote I generally wrote the music for him even whatever I was doing even though I did some jingles for him for his company did TV series and things and I was always thinking I wonder what hands would think of this if he walked in right now which sometimes he didn't as he didn't and I just sort of always tried to impress him and I think it worked I think so too what did you kind of take away what it was he able to teach you in those early years that you didn't get from well you know from your teachers or anything like that was just more kind of the business sense of things that you can't get grasp early on I mean with the greatest respect to all the teachers there's nothing that I know about that world yeah of course you know really and I mean I just I think it's very I can't imagine how I would have learned without hands I mean obviously I learned a certain amount in in London you know with advertising and and then I did TV series I worked with a you know the composers like Tim Schuster wonderful and but hands was you know it was obviously at another level and I mean he taught me he taught me it kind of everything really very quickly I learned everything very quickly yeah again maybe waiting a little while so my actual chops were might kind of compose composing orchestrating in in the box as it were yeah all of that I got my I got those chops really much stronger than they had been and they were really kind of ready to go and that's that became the essential part of it for when you know you get things thrown at you so the first things I was doing was just doing some arrangements for Prince of Egypt and I did some adverts and I did the TV series and and then hands came back to me and we did this film for Terrence Malick called endurance yeah wasn't so fantastic and that's that was one of those things where he was sort of loving kind of being with Terry Malick but as we began that he was stuck on something else so much that we just had a few meetings and we'd go away right and by we I mean I wrote he so he ended up I just throw everything for that right it was just absolutely wonderful but it and that the you know the guidance on that one that with hands was great but Terry was also wonderful he treated us both great artists yeah I mean even know who there and then a job came in for hands you know from john-boy we'd worked together they'd work together and he really wanted has to do it and has basically put me up for it and and taught me through it and it's funny I was just finding all the bits of that the other day and just like hundreds and hundreds of like demos I did for about two and a half weeks I want to get it all done you know just trying to get the gig yeah yeah and then you could see the dates of them going right up to you know sort of like just before a presentation day which I remember was on a Friday but everyone came and listened to the ideas wow that was that nervous like presenting that and like yeah you know for your first kind of big feature right yeah it was a 280 million dollar feature yeah it was it was crazy really the item the chance again to do it but you know and I knew that they wanted hands so I had to be within that language right right but you know I think it I can't quite do him yeah yeah I mean yeah I think you have your own sounded and it you heard that in endurance and of course face off and we're you know talking about working under hands and and getting that kind of lay of the land now at this point your career I mean you don't have as big of a kind of operation as media ventures or remote control I think keeping it small but you do have amazing you're working with young composers like about to sanera Anthony Willis so as a kind of a mentor yourself know how do you be teacher also having them work but like letting them learn letting them grow like what is your approach I guess to being a mentor yeah I mean I'm not deliberately a mentor yeah I'm just I need help yes so you kind of you need to inform people to try and get them to mm-hmm the other option is they just do it wrong and then you don't like it and you do it yourself so the closer you can get them to what you need in helping you you know the quicker all goes so yeah I try to sort of tell them what I know which is obviously always about you know the picture is like what what is the film doing why are we doing this you know why is this scene here so hence what's the purpose of the storytelling point so then the music goes behind that it's amazing how you can just move on and write things in scenes and you don't you're not really sort of you just reacting to what you see yeah a lot of scoring goes like and goes on like that and I mean I think everybody's guilty of it I have been but I'm trying to get out of that you know and the hands would have been saying the same sort of things to me but I really try and make very clear any scene that I work on with you know with other proposes what we're trying to get so I'll do a sketch they'll you know they'll start fluffing it up and you know as long as I think it's very important that they understand exactly what I'm trying to do right really seen and what the point of each you know melody is doing am I'm a big stickler for kind of getting sort of logic internal logic in the thing I mean I don't think it matters to that many people but it's just part of my own you know OCD madness yeah but I also think it it gives me a sort of a forum to work in that then I understand the film better by trying to understand the threads and allowing the having themes that follow those threads so it it blends together at least for me you know in a logic but then obviously it just sort of purely kind of you know what you see is what you get level you have to make the scene sound right even with whatever theme you are using yeah so it's hard to try and sometimes get the themes to work in the right way you have to have things that you know are going to be flexible enough to to cover the ground that you need in each NEC mm-hmm so do you feel like you are a better storyteller now than you were like 20 years ago oh go Jess and no idea was doing my own Eve like it when you found this face off demos were you shot let me do you listen to them were you like on it no we just found the the sequences mm-hmm logic sequences so I couldn't and they it's very hard to open eyes but but do you ever listen to your old stuff and go who's that guy or do you recognize that guy no it was sounds kind of like me because it's got all this off fetishes in it let's go for mostly but I don't remember how it fits with picture sometimes if I'm cruising through you know kind of TV ice you see something from a long time ago and then you watch a little bit of it and you neither makes me squirm or it's like I seem to know what I'm doing but right no I mean it was George Miller that really kind of sort of finished off my mentoring education as far as film you know I'm you know working with him and storytelling I mean I really started to finally understand storytelling I think so I'm in your opinion what is the purpose of score what is the purpose of music in film wait when you've given when I think about it it is such a weird concept you know here's music playing but in life that would seem weird walking down the street but and you look back at how films started of course sitting in a silent theater was weird so they played music to make you feel engaged I mean today that was just a cover the noise we project yeah originally and then they I think they noticed that you know you could kind of you could raise the emotional stakes right and yeah I mean that's really all it's supposed to do it's just supposed to follow them I don't know them you know the emotional reaction that you can have as an audience member but obviously there's a subtext to the story that the music can attach itself to that brings a lot more um complexity and paradox of course it's the basis of all art to the scene rather to the storytelling it's somebody can be saying something but the music can tell you they're lying or that they don't believe it or that they're missing the whole point of something they actually just don't understand and that that suddenly makes characters in in these stories more believable to us I think because we understand them absolutely and you can see lots of there's lots of films that don't do that and what's TV that doesn't do that but the really good stuff is always doing that yeah absolutely so you're early filmography is I I really love because it's so varied that you tackle these different genres whether it's faceoff and ants I mean the forces of nature kind of jumping around these different genres was that was it just by chance because you deserve the projects that were coming to you are you kind of seeking out not to typecast yourself here no it was just look and also I mean I was a bit all over the shop musically hadn't quite you know the danger would have been at the end of faceoff to get more gigs just nothing but action films right right and I was so exhausted from it that I think I kind of was a little bit hesitant to do that which was in retrospect maybe not the best idea because I could probably got a few more big films but instead I decided to kind of try and do smaller films to sort of change and it almost stalled everything I think so I'm not sure that was a good idea but the result is that you know I got back into it with ants thanks Jeffrey Katzenberg we had a hit with that one and then that was often running really from there yeah I almost didn't quite you know make it a little and um you know you mentioned Jeffrey and kind of let's talk about your how important like DreamWorks has been in your career and I mean starting with ants and Oh Prince Prince of Egypt and ants and Shrek and I'm just keep going and going leading up to of course el Toro de el the road to El Dorado which is I think one underrated I love that score I love the film um I mean it's like perfect it's just great swashbuckling adventure but leading up to of course how to train a dragon and the whole trilogy that you did with Dean and but whatever those early DreamWorks days compared to now like how do you kind of see your DreamWorks as kind of this kind of through line for your career it's it's crazy I mean they just formed I arrived in Hollywood at the same time as so does their first movie you know right Prince of Egypt what a bold first movie to write yeah until until the burning bush and then it's like and then even then I understood that there was you know unfortunately religion kind of ruined storytelling a bit I know you're an atheist or maybe the magical aspect is like suddenly it stops being a kind of a something you understand on a human level like right out of the way but it's always like a cheat this is this is why I don't really like superhero movies it's just a cheat I don't cheat yeah it was like you know I just explained it oh yes yes everybody's beating everybody else up at the end but they never die and you know I know they do yeah so it's a problem for me so god films and huge superhero films sort of the same thing but it was a it was a wonderful movie to do and I mean I got to work on some you know some great stuff with hands he'd already done the opening which was amazing but it was some of the other songs and a lot of the arrangements I did were for songs that never ended up in the movie I kind of managed to prove that they didn't work maybe I'm not sure they were all great songs fantastic saying it's Stephen Schwartz yeah yeah we use genius I loved working with him as well yeah and he was very very kind absolutely and to me Shrek of course another a big you know thing he did with Harry yeah and that's I mean Harry went on to finish the the franchise but I'll talk about working with Harry you guys had a really unique relationship yeah we didn't know each other until you know it's got was a Katzenberg or Hans but yeah yeah Katzenberg thank you Joe Jeffrey hands won't somebody else to do cases but no he he he very kindly just had worked with Harry on Prince of Egypt who helped with the score and I'd done the songs and he just liked us both I think we were a bit kind of obviously you know determined I think and pushed really hard and he could see that so he just suggested it because hands couldn't do and so those he would have done it but he was on something else right right so we got thrust together and I didn't really know Harry and I was writing and and obviously it's very interesting because I'd done a lot of collaboration with Gavin so I had no problem with it at all it was easy for me I think you know Harry had obviously collaborate a lot with hands but this was a different thing I was at hands right right so we then had to sort of rebalance ourselves a little bit and hands I'm sure would make sure that we knew that who you know what the other one was doing really good work and you know what would what could I do to you know so I think there was a sense of competition about it yeah and it it was only good for us so you guys get a locker do you guys know I mean he's wonderfully crazy and he's a brilliant pose oh yeah it's easy to kind of work with from that point of view but he's obviously very he's got his style and he's got his opinion on how sure so we had to work that out and then her hands would come in as well and have his opinion and then you have a large music sort of department from Dreamworks would have their opinion then you'd have two producers two directors but really the only person you needed listened to was Jeff it was it was most of the time it was it was a big crowd of people but yeah yeah I always remember that the first thing that would come out of Jeffrey's mouth as soon as you finished playing a cue to him for the first time was probably the only thing you needed to listen to the solution obviously needed to be found somewhere else but the fact that Jeffrey would make a comment on things he would often just get he'd just get that really obvious thing that the audience is gonna think yeah and that's the stuff you need to think about and write stuff about you I'm realized I'm going up a dead and dead end alley here with this cuz nobody's really thinking about that that is not the purpose of this scene so think why is the music doing something that it's it's not needed for yeah absolutely so I think probably learnt an awful lot about storytelling as well with Jeffery really no he's not he's not a he's not a sort of a he's not he's not telling you how to do it or what you do he just reacts you for who's very wonderfully reactive and just clear about his reaction to these absolutely there's a kind of fast-forwarding let's talk about dragons How to Train Your Dragon was 2010 that's a good amount of time ago and over those three years three films a complete trilogy which is rare I think in these days it's not gonna continue going on and on and on and on so yet a guys were able to resolve the story and come to a conclusion but what were your first memories of that film I know we had a nice chat you Dean and I and Dean was mentioning he came late to the project were you were you on the project before Dean and Chris were no no so they yeah they just come on and then I you know I was introduced to the books by the producer Bonnie and and you know I I just read the books and then came in from meetings for the art work and met with everybody and it just seemed wonderful but I didn't really realize how good it was at the time I must say I remember I realized how good trick was at the time but Dragons I didn't see I couldn't quite work out if it was working until really quite late on because the some of the animation came in and I just realized that this is just absolutely the best thing efficient and and then and I I realized that Chris and Dean had such a great sense of story you know for that and it was it's such a kind of a an emotion it was a very emotional story re but played very very cool the time yeah cuz it's never allowed to you know and you'd never see the emotions I mean that's the whole thing about Vikings and men they never say that emotions so I think that's why I got to be much more emotional musically as well trying to be warmer and richer yeah yeah so it was it was a great you know I'd like to I'd like to think it was it was sort of easy but it of course it wasn't I'm sure it was very hard they're all hard I mean as it's it was amateur film it felt mature even though it was for you know family audiences and it had the kind of the goofy jokes and the goofy side characters but there was a maturity with that relationship with hiccup and toothless and of course carried into the second one and third one and your and your point of view how did the score evolve across those three films I guess it matured a bit number two and then it it reflected a bit more number three reflected on its on its life which I was doing personally as well so I think that's why it kind of it works you know it's it's interesting that I've lived I've lived the last of 10 my 10 years of my life with those films and and it's been a very interesting 10-year yeah I mean 10 years a lot happens in 10 years and then yeah yeah I mean I did the first one I remember my wife was given a diagnosis with breast cancer on the day I got nominated and then and then she was going through kind of a hell of a you know an ordeal with that on the second one and then of all she died and then I did the third one after she died so so they live they live in my kind of my you know my life the you know the level of my sort of personal kind of connection with these films you know obviously it's never gonna be there for anybody who doesn't know me well but maybe it's there emotionally I don't know you know it sort of I think the first ones the most joyful the second one is definitely hunkering down and dealing with some difficult stuff and as I say I think the third one this one is my most reflect it's a very reflective score and it because there's I had an plenty of material from the first two as well I I was able to reflect on that but I knew I couldn't rely on it was one of the tough things about it and I didn't want to rely on him I knew I needed to I needed to make a whole arch form within the film the third film and I needed strong material for that as well but it but the original material some of the original material gain me these kind of book golden bullets I could use and I was very careful to use them but it that's the reflection it's just that you know these you can use these great memories yeah but you need to sort of keep moving and and make that move forward you know so I think that's in there yeah that's what was going through my head I know it's going through in the film - I mean the way the film ends it doesn't end on a and then you know we see moving forward towards the end - and we were able to capture that I think I think Dean did and you know I mean I think he was explaining he wanted to end not you know we go spoilers well yeah we go see his toothless's with his family we see there's life moving on everything is going forward and I think there was that theme in there too even though yeah yeah so talking about you mentioned kind of your personal life and kind of all that stuff do you draw from your personal life into your work is that kind of I mean a lot of people say they like to like I'm not gonna like if I need to feel sad I'm not gonna think of pain in my life I'm gonna try to keep it towards the film and pull from the characters or do you kind of mix do you have a fine line between your creative vision and or do you draw from your wealth of experience of life a good question I don't know I mean you do try and we do try and really love the characters in the story and you know with them but where does that I mean at the whole point of story time is that we sit in a dark room with the BBC and we feel things together we connect with the characters when we're connecting with the people next to us we're connecting with them everywhere around the world that that has enjoyed this story so the story is gonna have this it's gonna have a layer that you find as an audience member and as a composer I'm an audience member at a certain point and so yeah I look probably I don't know deliberately I don't sit oh yes this reminds me of this situation I'm gonna I just think it kind of comes you know as you try and you try and find the the most honest sort of expression that you can of what the character needs and it's feeling you look into yourself for that and that's all that music is it's just a you know it's my memories of music you know and that could be you know ye linked to story things you know I mean really if I was to you know my father I remember the day after he died I did a concert where we played you know Algarve variations I think and I was playing I was playing viola and I just remember that being incredibly emotional that's you know that particular day and forevermore you know that that pieces so if I really wanted to go for it and I wanted to bring in in number two if I wanted I feel you know kill the father I would have probably sounded a bit more like Elgar but don't think I did yeah so it's it's sung it comes you know the emotion is there the literal recognition of what you were doing where you were doing it how it fits with the character not so much yeah I mean yeah I can see I mean of course everything that you live that you were all sponges and are absorbing everything around you and it's it projected you know outwards and sometimes I'll watch a movie and there's something so painful and it reflects on me and then I'm just thinking I'm like did the screenwriter go through that too or like I don't know of where they draw it from but it's always like that hit me but I wonder of that they felt that pain in real life it's always I'm always curious about like kind of that stuff it's all common to everybody yeah across the whole for sure history of mankind is is everybody feeling pretty much the same way about thing yeah we're we think we're so different roll all the same going through the same things absolutely we're talking about where kind of music comes from kind of looking at you're a whole general approach I know it's gonna be different for every film but where where does the first note come from where do you kind of gravitate towards to find that first idea do you enjoy the conversation with the director do you like if you can have the opportunity read the script if you're on that early or do you just like to watch the first cut do you have like a kind of a standard approach or I mean the dragon's eye I got an early version of the story of three but it did change quite a lot and and I think it was early enough that I'd forgotten it by the time we actually saw the first movie right we one of the things I like to do is wait until the film's in some good condition yeah and then I watch it no music no temp music definitely and then just try and watch it a few times through and so I did that with with dragon three I looked at it carefully and then I let it sort of sit in my brain awhile and you know had some meetings with the Dean just started to write tunes the new tunes I think I felt I needed right right through those those ideas or at least you have to like dedicate time to think about it or do you have to just like go for a walk and just let it come to you I do just like all right I'm gonna hunker down and come up with ideas I'd like to say that one it's all the walk one but no it's normally just avoidance avoidance yeah yeah try and stay in bed try not to get out bed trying to watch television nobody is supposed to be working well we talked about it last time a procrastination you know how like we're just detecting why people per cat procrastinate and how you're really mapping it out in your head right yeah we were talking about we were talking about that but this is I to me I was really another article about that the other day is basically that you are if you're really procrastinating one of the things you might be doing is though he's trying to avoid failure hmm because you're you're feeling it you're actually not good enough to do this it could be - I remember you just don't want to do it no you want to do it because you want it to work yeah it well for this but maybe it's something else that you don't oh yeah of course for this you wanted to do it I'm not like a question I am still stuck in here I'm right at the beginning of a film at the moment I'm sorry this is a good question procrastinating um in fact this very interview is procrastinating I'm keeping you from your work I'm so sorry how long does it typically take you to finalize it like a theme or a motif or once you like hunker it down do you go through like 3040 versions or you're able to kind of find the heart of it pretty quickly sometimes it comes kind of quick sometimes it's just real slow sometimes it's chunks and bits you know and then you you're playing one tune you suddenly realize you've done it to another tune I do try and get them up and on their feet so I end up with this kind of cues that have tunes in them that really aren't light yet and they get to quite a late version with full orchestration arias like that and I'm still changing the tune it drives everybody nuts especially me but sometimes you don't really understand what the tune is doing it - you hear it articulated in different ways different tempos different keys even you know changing the key of how you write the tune is can lead to all sorts different places because it's just the combination of the harmonics you hear different ways for different ways in and out of where you were getting stuck or was getting dull I know the thing I wish I did more was just what John Williams does so much so well which is that kind of getting a much better rhythmic formula not formula but a rhythmic kind of plan in it that so that the rhythm within just the melody gives you a lot more than you need right in this kind of new world of composing where you just two pads and huge drums that give you all the rhythm and then you just do these kind of very dull Tunes over the top of it I mean that's basically what we've got - now John Williams doesn't do that way he's within the tune there's all the rhythm you'll never need to understand what the tune is doing as in how vibrant or how energetic is or how you know delicate it's in the rhythm of the melody it doesn't even need they come to him to tell you that and then it's all it also brilliantly one of the things he does it's very hard to do with chooses is it implies the harmony so you don't need to put giant pads of every everything every note on every instrument okay it's just part of the the accompaniment it is much more like because we're not like it's it's much more focused because it doesn't it doesn't have an it's not so much is in the tune the harmony and the rhythms are already in the tune so everything else is just kind of just sits around it just supporting it a bit and that means that everything can be more fluid and these days we kind of do write a bit you know sort of like giant buildings chunk oh yeah much you know monolithic so trying to get out of the habit of doing that because it's easy right right and into more more I don't know thought thoughtful Tunes I don't know it's very hard very hard yes answer I still don't know how you how you do it or anybody honestly don't I don't know when I'd do it better than I do it better sometimes perhaps than other times I can't quite tell the Y happens better sometimes and other times you know better in your eyes or just looking at what other people are saying yeah I care what other people say really I mean you could I can look back on these things and go that's okay well the only way I can get away with that is just you think you said well I'm a filmic pose I don't have time so and that's a that's a cheap way out because you know some of my favorite film composers you know they have compositional rigor dance degree yeah so and then and they didn't have time yeah you know very but Jerry Goldsmith on alien he didn't have time right but you want to look at that as a piece of writing you know it was incredible writing yeah yeah so you mentioned of course John Williams occur to you got to work with him a little bit for solo they were able to did you pick his brain did you get time to really go yeah yeah we actually found a video the other day of us doing spotting session Oh nobody will ever see it but I was watching it and I was just remembering yeah what an amazing day was when we went through the whole movie yeah and just kind of did you notice just things that he's doing that nobody else is doing I mean you mentioned the certain things that I was writing technique yes I mean absolutely it's it's not like he was telling me these things and those are the things I have noticed yeah observing what he was telling me though was I think in the way he Road was just you know he was he was really trying to find the right language for characters and the tone of the movie and and I definitely got stuck until he had been writing already in it until he really came on and then there was this period when we were sort of working together a bit and that's really when I I started to understand the movie a bit and understand the tone yeah it didn't it didn't mean that I had to wait for him to the race or put his feet down on the ground but once he'd done that I saw I think way forward it was literally like nine-day I was just like fog and then he did his demos of things he did some melodies and did these demos and it's just like everything from their own words I was like okay I know I know what to do and I had a lot of material ready that I written and I just it just I understood how to use it from that point onwards once John sort of set the tone you mentioned of course also Iran and Ron Howard and of course other you've worked with so many other great directors and you've built long-lasting relationships dean of course or doug liman all these other great filmmakers and of course there's you know this is always great working with someone that you worked with before and kind of the shorthand but what's the key I guess from a composer's point of view to nailing that kind of first meeting with a new director and how do you adapt I guess different personalities is that your job description to Billy okay this this person's a little bit more reserved or this person is much bigger louder as I mean do you have to kind of shift yourself to work with different people I've ever shifted that way the thing I learned to do was to look at the directors work understand understand their tone and what I thought they were always trying to sort of find in their work and then be very enthusiastic which you know obviously for an English person is a little different from American but and I almost lost jobs because I was deemed to be not soozee a stick difference at all I mean Chris wedge on on first meeting I had with Chris wedge for robots I thought it was fabulous meeting and then I heard that he said what John doesn't seem he's really nice and I love his stuff but he doesn't seem very keen all right so I wrote this great big long email I'm sorry Chris you don't understand I am English so when I said you know yes that sounds interesting to me what I meant was about it you know I should have really kind of like set off fireworks yeah and it exploded taken all my clothes off immediately able at the same time and that would have kind of really been that would have been an expression of how I really felt but of course it just kind of came out a little bit kind of reserved because I was trying not to I was trying to hold it all down yeah yeah that's that's good good advice so kind of looking at your I guess in your position you are now and your career in your life I guess what are you still trying to crack what are you still trying to achieve other puzzles that you haven't figured out yet is there stuff that you want to figure out let you don't know yet yeah I mean I wish I I wish I could rely easy wish it was easier to write you're trying to find a better way to write is that yes and be better but mainly be better like how can I be a better way to write better I just wish I could get it to flow better or I don't know so I'm gonna I might just try some acid or something so working in the industry I think a lot of professionals out there kind of you're finding out how much time it takes to devote to this career to this profession how have you learned to balance work life personal life I mean is there a trick to it how do you manage the long hours and being able to take time for yourself of course and your family I mean how do you work all that out I don't know I mean I tell people I mean it's just about being selfish yeah you just have to be selfish and you have to fortunately have relationships with people who could put up with that yeah and it's it's painful to look back at it sometimes I mean there's loads of photos of my son he's just about to go off to college there's loads of photos of my son on holidays and I suddenly remember thinking well where was that way it was though you know boy am I not in any of the photos that wasn't there looking you know I was probably supposed to be there but then you know over and ran out time or work too slowly and you know many times things would move and I just wouldn't be able to go and so that selfishness is kind of it's built into this business yeah it's a it's just it's a business that requires everything from you and you either gonna give it all I mean some people are much better so but that's my take on it is I mean you know I know that James Newton Howard obviously very sort of nine to five he can get it all done but he has of that about four wives so you know I definitely say there's a cost yeah some way you have to sacrifice something yeah yeah you you are to be I guess you've slowed down a bit I mean you've taken a sabbatical you taking like a time yeah I think there was a two years you took off or something yeah like shutting things down pretty the other way it worked I mean basically I kind of from about 2013 really have only done one film a year I mean some of them were in two in one year and then they release a releasing ex but if you look at it since 2013 the last you know eight years of seven years I've really only done one film a year do you find that as a good yeah this is good for you and good many for me yeah I just like it to be a film that I care about so that's the trick is to try and find one that I I really want to do you know I'm here on call of the wild and it's just wonderful it's a wonderful film completely you know stark I said I mean I I sort of know what it should be I do but you know can I do it well that's gonna be the question right how well can I do and I know I have to because the film's good it's any good and it needs it needs a really brilliant school so I don't know I'm still at that point can I do that I know it needs it I know how to do it and can I do it as if you ever are you were just terrified that the ideas will stop coming they also they never come they always stop hope you know if people say that it's like when they stop coming late they never Colleen everything about you basically beat them out and squeeze them out and whatever you want to say but they just don't come I mean oh that's for me I mean right it's talking to Danny off from the other day and he he does he has had those moments when things just pop into the brain I've never had that and I just sit down and keep hacking at it until something is not terrible and then I hack at it a bit more until it's slightly less worse unless worse do you is that a process enjoyable or the painful and enjoying painful yeah very annoying when you get at the end of it's great yeah I think I think you mentioned that you you really you would strive to get to that finished product and have it right and whereas somebody like Hans is like all the meticulous details is that kind of you know i did i mean i'm i'm i can be lost in the details as well yeah I mean hence I've seen hands work in a way that he he gets it absolutely perfectly right one bar at a time and then he does the next fifty bars and they're all the same they're all right obviously don't find that very hard why I have to kind of slap a lot a lot more kind of white brush strokes around but maybe he's doing it his brain beforehand but then you know I think we all play around yeah and then let's see anyway it's a play play time and that's the thing able to try and relax on it's just okay look this is a great fun yeah I just get to sit here and play around and mess around and see what I can come up with it's not actually very intellectual at all it's it's mainly instinct at a certain point but still I mean that process and it's hard to talk about it too because you don't want to I feel like I don't know if you like today's society when you say the word art or it's so pretentious like a pretentious artists like but it's still this human part of the brain that I mean I think it's such an interesting part of creativity and kind of coming up with these ideas and it's still yeah it's a painful struggle and people might be like oh you know making millions of dollars and making music whatever but it's like it's no that process that's when I say painful it's not like yeah thing breaks yeah it's a bit stressful I mean that's all it is there's an anxiety to it but but there's an anxiety to not be able to pay your mortgage you know and yeah anxiety to life all the time so I've probably forgotten just how anxious all everybody is yeah and I think I'm the only one sometimes with it so it's an unfair situation I mean which is that I you know I have incredibly good it's really an easy job yeah and you can do it pretty badly and still get away with it oh yeah do you ever think about I know you didn't mean mentioned earlier you don't pay attention to what other people are saying but do you ever think about legacy do you ever think about the what you're leaving behind or what you're creating now that will kind of stand the test of time has ever go through your mind like your body of work well if anyone can't see there is a beautiful dog down here yeah I mean you can get very pretentious on this stuff for me of course yeah there is you know there was a write music that connects with people that could communicate with them and the thing I've enjoyed in my life is other people's music so I've been able to sit there and hear you know music by Ravel and understood things that there's no words for and there's no no other way of explaining and at a distance of a hundred years time machine in a way I get to talk to Ravel understand him hear what he's thinking in a way that I can't explain so there's a sort of a there's a metaphysical layer to this that yeah yeah that's what I've enjoyed about music so if I'm gonna do this can I get to do this in the same way can I leave something behind that somebody else will enjoy in a way that that I have so it's it's just pass it forward yeah in a way whether that's everything about my life that I should care about I don't know but I mean bringing something beautiful into the world whether it's you know a child who's gonna grow out and be wonderful or whether it's you know any major or whether it's words or music I mean it's really all I could sort of hope for at the moment because I'm not really good at anything else well with that being said have you um you've carved out this unique path with your life in your career you live you traveled you've worked as this point is your life of this point you're like let's get we're gonna get a big question here have you figured it out what it all means to you do you know the meaning of it all of it all other than 42 other than 42 what does it all mean I don't mean to jam your novel I don't know it changes all the time I mean my latest take on is it is just yeah I mean trying to leave something behind that's beautiful hunt and put energy into your friendships because they'll they'll better you have a lot of they benefit you yeah hugely for sure I think so I think that's about it really you know that's the point yeah I'm beginning to think that I've taken too much ibuprofen I'm worried about I for profile I think there's something we don't know about I referred them might be hurting you [Laughter] Pilates our recently discovered is the most painful thing on it but I'm gonna try and do that I mean I I don't know I think that sums it up well John thank you again for chatting for picking your let me pick your brain and it's always a joy [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Film.Music.Media

Views: 13,883

Keywords: Composer, Interview, Video, Video Interview, Podcast, Film Score, Soundtrack, Album, Song, Music, Track, Score, Career, All Access, Film Music Media, Film, Media, Movie, Movies, TV, Television, Kaya Savas, Behind The Scenes, Music Production, Filmmaking, John Powell, Dean DeBlois, How To Train Your Dragon, How To Train Your Dragon 2, How To Train Your Dragon 3, How To Train Your Dragon Trilogy, Animation, Dreamworks

Id: cCHHu4nxud4

Length: 60min 59sec (3659 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 18 2019