Trent Reznor, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman and more Composers for THR's Roundtable | Oscars 2015

film composers are given an almost impossible task create a memorable score that resonates with an audience but isn't so effective that it steals the show join us as we sit down with five of this year's most accomplished composers on this episode we have Marco Beltrami the homesman Danny Elfman big eyes John Powell How to Train Your Dragon to Trent Reznor gone girl and Hans Zimmer interstellar welcome to The Hollywood Reporter round tables the composers welcome to The Hollywood Reporter round tables the composers I'm Kevin Cassidy and I'm here with Hans Zimmer John Powell Marco Beltrami Trent Reznor and Danielle thank you for being here I'd like to know what in the last year musically speaking you really really wrestled with what was the riddle you had to solve that kind of raised the anxiety level and really kept you awake at night John well you mean just generally musically or on dragging I have an iron dragon on dragons we're just trying to come to terms of the fact that I was getting old the characters were getting old and my style was getting old I think so I just had to be happy with the fact that I was sounding really old fashioned and you know like motif and weirdly kind of 19th century themes and folk music from the 60s and I used to be hit apparently and now I'm this old fart that that does only orchestral music can heights tune so our orchestral scores all fashioned now obviously it's it's a it's a factor of you know I've done a lot of hybrid scores and the in the past you know I suppose I had a reputation for you know while back when I was young for doing things that you know didn't have too much auction and that was often its budgetary actually I mean Warren was not very orchestral because they'd already had a school and they'd spent all the money so we didn't have enough money so I was told no orchestra you know until the last minute then they found a little bit extra for Strings in this case we already had the example of the first movie so I kind of knew where it was but because everybody in the film grew up I thought maybe the music should so I kind of delved into a lot of the language that had you know called on from my history you know classical music I loved Sibelius and nielsen sort of Scandinavian composers Russian composers I just allowed myself to just go into it a bit more deeply in it and and you look around and you go okay well everybody's doing hip scores and everybody's kind of got some interesting things going on and um you know Here I am so I'm making it sound more fashion this is Burke the best-kept secret this side of well anywhere granted it may not look like much but this wet heap of rock packs more than a few surprises life here is amazing just not for the faint of heart you see where most folks enjoy hobbies like whittling or needlepoint we prefer a little something we like to call dragon racing old-fashioned dispossess you know is relative it's whatever's going on at the time and it just seemed to be right at the time so I got I got used to the idea they took a while I had to kind of get over I think was about being 50 right at the time when I was trying to write the Seattle midlife crisis I did I didn't write in the middle of the film you know it was fun in the end yeah don't worry honestly I'm not I'm not that yeah wait about it okay good marker we were inventing things for the project were working on this is the homesman for the homesman and I was afraid that we never get to actually get the project on I mean there was some concern where's the music and all that but I was fixated on building this instrument up on the hill this piano and also these harmonic guitars but it all takes time and and this trial and error and then you have to wait for the wind to be right and it's hard to tell you know I can't do it now because waiting for the wind so much of being a sailor as being a composer yeah so it was it was sort of a new way of working for me and just not being sure I was going to be able to produce the ideas that I that I heard my name is Cuddy Mary bee Cuddy where's mr. Cuddy I live and commonly alone wants to draw three women in this country have lost their minds can't care for them properly you and I are gonna take them back across the river to Iowa I need someone who can hunt and guide help with the animals on the trip it's your job and you swore to do it that's why I set you free three crazy women for five weeks there's a lot more than I bargained for perhaps you don't realize what a grand thing you're doing taking these poor helpless women home if you don't I assure you I do this might be the fine is most generous act of your life you've never really attempted this before on any project Wyatt why on this project well because the picture to me suggested you know it's all about these women going crazy living on the on the frontier and the thing that makes them feel crazy is among other things that summed up by the wind so I thought it's such a important component to the to the to the film there's got to be a way to make it a musical idea and and be able to I really wanted to be able to tune the wind and make it as a musical element and that would be my starting point but you know it it was a question of me and Buck who works with me in the studio spending a lot of time just researching in trial and error you know trying to find people that could sell us piano wire and all kinds of stuff well it works because the score is really really great oh thank you Danny what did you struggle with on um big eyes no I'm not going to be able to add much to this table I mean no it really wasn't my year wasn't a year of insomnia contrast but big eyes in itself was a really little movie was tiny film approach was tiny small orchestra think small and so I don't have a lot to add other than my year was more about things you know films are like icebergs you know you they you have them at a certain point but they all look like they're all in a row and then they all start to move and start to blow and suddenly there's oh oh this is crunching in to this and now I'm stressed and so my year was kind of a year of stressful trying to avoid catastrophic collisions and make them elegant but big eyes itself was of it was more like going backwards in time this was my 16th film with Tim and we started out really simple it just like do anything and don't care about it and nobody cares what we're doing and then it became more expectations and the films got bigger and more pressure to come up with salt sand and this was almost like going back to I don't know pee-wee's big adventure or bill juice or something so far is it once again it's like nobody seems to be watching or there wasn't that sense of expectation you didn't want it to sound like his other scores he wanted to take things small so I feel like small at this table you know I mean done this small film with small expectations and everything about it was just little sitting the moon waiting for the muse to strength well your muse has 58 minutes ah it does sounds a different than normal Tim Burton score yeah he didn't want it to get into the fantasy side that he's you know so often explored and um he he had very definite thoughts about this should be like this and this should be like this and you know at a certain point it's just following the rhythm you find the rhythm of a director I mean there were disadvantages and disadvantages to be with the director that you know really well I mean in the one hand you can kind of fall into a rhythm where you you understand what they might be looking for and and it makes sense and the other hand sometimes you know not knowing what the director is like and what their expectations can you know that that's a whole kind of the beautiful thing unto itself because you you just have no idea what they're going to do so in this case I knew enough of his rhythms to know that once I started falling and do certain grooves this is what's kind of getting dim he's nuts you know Tim never says he loves any piece of music I've ever written it's just he's either pulling his hair out which is a bad idea or he's looking pensive and that's good and he'll nod maybe a little bit and go okay that's good enough after 29 years we're go and so I just look for where the hair stops getting pulled and then I know were okay yeah so that's interesting do so if a director was really effusive with praise are you that concern you well anybody gets a few soup with praise I want to disappear very quickly it makes me want to hi are you guys are you the same I mean how do you when the director reacts what's that like what is what is it like when the director first hears the music and get a reaction you know as Jenny said I'm suspicious immediately of any sort of it sounds too good like I want to focus in on the negative you know if there's a hundred reviews and one the wrongs bad that's the one and I'm paying attention to I I know David quite well and waiting we have a similar kind of mindset towards that so we've got a rhythm where he's careful to critique but I know when we haven't hit you know when we get it right it was usually a pretty glowing response that it feels good no no no no it's genuine coming from him did you struggle with on gone girl I struggle with gone girl revolved around boxing myself into a schedule everything had been planned out a couple years ago he knew that David's next film was going to be a different film that would have started right right now I booked tour Nine Inch Nails which was me up almost all of this year and once that tour was booked and went on sale then I got the call saying hey that other film fell through now I'm going to do gone girl it's going to land exactly on the tour you just booked so it was either pass which I wasn't going to allow that to happen or try to find a way to fit that into any time there was a week off here any moment to come to a dress working on the score and I approach these projects films with a great sense of insecurity and I make I try to make up for that by just an enormous amount of work I can throw at it you know to make up for what might be dead ends or wrong directions you know I don't know the confidence didn't know I can just whip this out in X amount of time so it added a level of tension so weed Atticus Ross and I we'd have foam we start at the beginning this year there'd be two to three week intense composition session and then be away from it for six weeks and then come back day at back from tour right in the studio and I think in hindsight it might be justification now but it did provide an objectivity that I normally wouldn't have where I would just grind it out think about it and we were talking about insomnia suffer from that through the whole process I think it wound up being a good thing but it made the process a bit anxious throughout where I always felt like if there's one wrong turn I could screw this up without the luxury of time to fix things because what if yeh yeh would have just run out of time right Larry it forced my hand too there wasn't a lot of room for misdirection you know I just added a level of tension I can hear music which may be a good thing but it wasn't as enjoyable in some ways because you always felt like to be done by this and you lost a lot of blood in there yeah why they mop up the blood if they're trying to stage a crisis whatever they found I think it's safe to assume that's very our job is if you do a deposition what to say what not to say trained monkey trained Matthew doesn't give lethal injections maybe you live you assaulted her it's not good enough for you a hitter it's not even funny we now believe Nick is involved in the disappearance of our daughter their only hope is a confession I killed my wife this man what about my son Nicholson alarms on the previous projects you had far more time particularly Dragon Tattoo we just took the whole year and said let's go crazy let's make it also a study on exploring different soundscapes and different methods of doing things like what I found Atticus and I talked about this a lot were in our work load of things we take on whether it be a nine shells record or other things that seems in my past when I was young I had time to learn every piece of gear and explore every option and that feeling of a mastery of something where I could extract all kinds of sounds out of a limited set of stuff and I found just by the way I kind of fill my time with projects that a lot of times I'm using tricks I know how to do you know and I kind of have an idea of what I'm doing but I never go into what we call in the lab and just go crazy experimenting what happened so we used Dragon Tattoo we kind of turned that into lab time and also composition as we didn't book anything else and not as its merits but also as it is another form of insanity that can come up when you ask composers would they rather have more of money or time they always say time deadlines in my case I don't think there was a lot of anxiety was just playfulness obviously interstellar and where director says you know it's the way in music you can sort of consolidate the different theories of time gravity and things like that you know in some sort of poetic way it keeps you up at night it sounds like a major challenge know it well it's a game it's okay is it always a game or was it just a game on this particular project um I have to say this project was sort of so delicious it was so nice having the whole workflow the whole I was very protected as well by Chris he just you know I could just go and express my ideas or whatever I wanted to try out we could try out and the the whole the way we worked was it was just one long great experiment just keep a lab doors of we must confront the reality that nothing in our solar system can help us they need to tell me how she plans to save the world we're not meant to save the world we're meant to leave it and this is the mission Boober train for I've got kids professor get out there and save them pack I'm coming back I don't know if you know the story of how we started interstellar I do the watch love the or the letter letter the letter yes um I know if Chris gave me this watch in the back it's this very slow this is not a time for caution I'd run into Chris about two years ago he said I gave you one page but wouldn't tell you what the movie is about would you give me one day and just write whatever comes to you sounds like a fun experiment so he gave me this one page it's typewritten old typewriter thick paper so new there were no carbon copies and it was disabled really about what you know of being a parent there were a lot of things and it really knows me pretty well there were lots of things which we had sort of talked about over dinners so I wrote him the you know sat down wrote the piece thrown him up Sunday 9:30 at night I said to him do you want me to send it over and he goes no no can he come down came down and I played it to him and this is like the Trey's thing in a funny way so I said you know I'm nervous playing things to people especially when they ask me to write about something very personal so so looked at him and went so what do you think and he goes suppose I'd better make the movie and then I said what is the movie and and that was a good way to start because it was you know it was very small I mean then he told me out this huge epic space and all these sort of things now actually somewhere while he was explaining the physics and the everything to me I said hang on a second but I've only written you this tiny little fragile theme because yeah I know where the heart of the story is now so it was a good way to start and it was and by starting differently as well it meant you know talking about experimentation I mean last summer two years ago um you know I just locked myself away and just was doing exactly the thing that you were sort of missing you know getting to know the toys again and getting really into the technology and really learning things learning things which is great I love doing fast way should be asked the real spirit of collaboration you know that sounds like a really ideal situation and we have this weird way we soft work in parallel where I write music while he's shooting mm-hmm you know and I don't really see the picture I mean there's literally there's one scene where he's described I think he was in Iceland I was in London and he's describing what needs to do this and then he's this and I'm going I don't listen I don't think I can do that I think I better half do this to picture he goes well over the years we've been pretty good we feel tempo while we feel drama sort of the tempo of drama a fairly similar way he said just give it a go just write it and if it doesn't fit well you know get your picture I wrote and I sent it over to him and found him and he said another hit every cart I mean his frame accurate said still and then he actually said you know but after he had said to me well no no no we're pretty good we feel tempo very similarly he he sort of was he hung the phone up he went and I was a bit reckless but I don't know I mean I think it's a nice way of working I have a feeling all of us and a funny way have this thing here where you know we like working with directors who see music as having an autonomous role you know not being a slave to the picture you what happens if the director doesn't like what you've just played for him um nothing happen to that ever happened somehow I get the sense that that's that's almost better better okay look no case enter well I mean I'm trying to figure out because we don't seal like a few tsipras but you don't want them to know you don't want not wanting a few civ not wanting to be bullshitted or have a few some praises far different then okay I don't like what you did right it doesn't matter what you do you've put a lot into it and that first moment of playing the first thing back is most frightening moment I mean anything I can think of I can't think of anything I am more terrified of still than the first time playing something safe so agree it never goes away yeah no doesn't get better it doesn't die 16 films with Tim and it does it it's not better I'm terrified playing the first play back for him what's interesting is that you actually perceive your music differently when somebody like the director or somebody's in the room and he's so conscious of every nuance that that's going on with them so at least I am noveria straight yes is like you're hearing it differently while you're in the end with somebody else yeah almost like here and then if there's something that's problematic it's sometimes you can almost anticipate it like it I don't know it's strange I agree with that it's it's a strange thing even if I'm working on an album you know I've got 15 songs and I need to trim it down to 12 and I've agonized over what's the weak link if I have a friend come in and listen I don't even have to look at whether they're in the room I immediately know that's that has to go that's the weak that's the bad one or that's the good one there's a clarity that comes from that yeah I don't know what it's like if it's similar with you guys but I there's a balance as they're getting attached to something and the director hasn't heard it yet if you wait too much longer you're going to get really attached to it and you might play it in the director makeup no no no that's the wrong thing and then you're devastated but you don't want to play it too early but you don't want to get so attached to you have it living with it solo so long that you run the risk of like really getting into it and then it could just go evaporate in there quick they second like a father-figure yeah what do you want to do if you if you feel very strongly about something and the director doesn't how far do you take that that family if the director can I think if we can articulate their the reasons like what it is and I can articulate and were able to have but with Tommy was very much like that I mean because one of the great things about working with him is that he doesn't use a temp score you know he's all about it's an open slate I want creativity and originality which is all great and fine but if I know he has some sort of mindset about what the pictures about and if the music's not going to fit into that then there's a problem but if he can articulate what it is and I can respond to it then I'm happy to work on it you know if if it becomes an impasse where you can't see what they're going after or whatever then I mean this certain point where you have to walk away I guess how do you guys decide on the overall sound of the score there was some interesting the other was Anna's I love phone in big eyes that I was hearing or rumba rumba and I organ right at a strange piano of some kind outside and homespun how do you decide that you're going to go with this kind of instrumentation for me the whole thing is trying to sort of distill the essence of the picture to the most simple element from which you know almost like an acorn of a tree and then when it sprouts out you know hopefully that the music from the picture will all be derived from a similar area something so finding that element is key to me maybe just as a idiosyncrasy for how I work but it keeps me organized and focused on where I am and where I'm going and what I'm trying to do so Hans Aldo the organ well with us it was actually sort of a two pronged approach one was you know we'd spent nearly 10 years on the Batman movie stuff developing a certain sound and that sound had seeped into the zeitgeist of a lot of other movies so we just went okay let's not do anything that we did on that let's take some colors out of our crayon box so no actually strings no thundering drums none of this would winds let's have woodwinds loads of woodwinds and but and the organ thing that was really like a Kris you know the way we talk about music we don't actually really talk about music we're always on story we're always talking about the story and somewhere in the in this talk about story and which was really about celebrating science celebrating scientists Chris was talking about how movies have become more and more internal and psychological we wanted to do something which was looking outwards in upward and this idea of truly celebrating science and borrowing things we start to talk about was obviously musical instruments and Chris at one points off mentioned pipe organs and if you think about it I mean by the 17th century they were the most complex machine that man had ever created and they sort of helped that pole position of complexity until the telephone exchange was invented and you know if you think about the way they look as well I mean it look like afterburners on a on a spaceship you know so class it just seemed it it just seemed fun to try to explore this I mean here he we were we are doing this sort of we were doing a science fiction movie but everything we were we were working with was organic and was sort of constantly keeping that thought in mind you know it's to try to go to the most excellent place that humanity can give you to go to extraordinary musicians to use extraordinary devices to figure out how to you know record them in in extraordinary places and record them really well and yeah I mean I had to spend you know a lot of time actually you know like like all of us you know I had to spend a lot of time working out how these things worked because you know yeah you can't just turn up and go okay switch it on here it is you know it's a beast it really is a trend would you would you see yourself writing a big orchestral score sometime I'd love the heavy opportunity you know if it was appropriate for the for the film you know um a little bit that we dabbled in on gone girl was more just accessorizing a bit you know there was a few passages that we were working on that sounded like it might be interesting to see what would happen if a roomful of people were playing it not afforded us a day to experiment after we take that one box of the need that we had and we had several hours to kind of really open my eyes to the possibilities you know that I hadn't really had access to in my world um so yeah I would like to try that as though hey I'm we divided this you're very much what you're talking about we divided the scope very precisely into okay these are the things we need to record this is the as written on paper and that sort of was one third of the session and two thirds of the sessions we literally you know there's that thing where the conductor stands up above the orchestra and speaks down to them so we start out with let's just reverse it let's just sit down be at eye level and let's just have a chat with the musicians and you know ask the bassoon player come on there must be one noise that you love to make and nobody ever lets you play let's hear it you know so find out literally treat them as individuals as opposed to the orchestra and sort of make them co-conspirators in the whole thing you guys often talk about ideas like finding the idea that leads you to all these other decisions where it doesn't make any sense to me cuz I'm not a musician it it seems like inspiration is the thing that you're looking for where how do you find the idea that's going to guide you down the right path how do you do that it's all the laboratory it's like Trent MS saying if X number of weeks in the lab I get unfortunately I'm hearing Hans talk about his experience and it sounds so wonderful my experience is kind of the antithesis because Tim doesn't talk about his movies at all he doesn't want to talk about them just shows me the movie and I'm off to the laboratory until his music to play it doesn't want to discuss it so I'd love to know what that's like sometimes and I shouldn't say by the way that he never says anything good about the music is when we're recording it he gets very funny and he gets very positive but it's laboratory time and it's trying everything but the kitchen sink I hate to make it sound so absurd but coming up how did I climb the marimba I was one of the dozens of things that I'd done one of them happened to be a marimba there was no reason whatsoever other than I played these dozen things for Tim finally biting my nails and he goes oh I like that a mental note likes the marimba and marimbas in there was no intent of other than one night I have a lot of marimbas in my studio I'm kind of a cocky I started with percussion there was a early point where I wanted to be a percussionist and I thought I was going to that was my life was being so now I have a loft full of marimbas and so it was naturally that one of the things I did should be reppin is that that random but it's all the laboratory time is like trying everything and then it focuses down to fewer and fewer things and then eventually the director comes in and you know it's like this is what I'm hearing and everything else is going to fall by the wayside and then the laboratory time stops because the clock says you are not allowed any more time and that's the end of it that I'm making it sound absurdly over-simplistic I'm sorry what's your routine like when you're working on a project John do you have a set routine well we a certain our work for certain hours so if I have three months to do it the first month I don't then this then the said you think about yes well actually I I think about thinking about everything about thinking about getting started then the second month you kind of you you get really worried because you're running out of time now you've taken the whole third but this happens every time oh yeah absolutely every single time yeah and it got worse I would say the numbers it used to be I would spend two weeks not avoiding you know when I first died with him was like you know and he'd come and shout at me so I you know it's that's going on with it you know but now I'm on my own as it were I I don't have anybody to shout at me you want me to come by I'm like yeah but it's it's a it's a it's a fear because it's a huge grade load of music you've got to suddenly produce I'd say the the definite advantages is that if you're if you're with the filmmaker who who can construct a film that's really well constructed you get a lot I mean I think that's amazing about my hands they could see even though you know Chris Nolan's great filmmaker he didn't give you anything so you were basically kind of going off paper and I know I've been there where we you know it's just you have to play to try and find what those what the voice is that the movie asks for and it's always between you and the director and the filmmakers all the filmmakers sometimes because somebody can not like something you're doing from the studio and you can't just ignore them you have to you have to try and take into consideration all the voices you know because otherwise they it's going to come back to bite you in the ass later but all these people are going to kind of are going to say things your play time gets adjusted gets things get picked out and then you have a style in this particular case I got lucky because I was on a sequel and sequels are great and they're very hard sometimes very much easier so this time I knew the tone I knew that you know everything that was going on in the movie had already been kind of established it just had to mature and I had a filmmaker who had constructed a story that was so precisely done and I could see it exactly I mean it wasn't just in conversations beforehand you know year before it was literally the first time I saw the film everything was there so then it was just about sort of stitching together the music so it you know adhered as closely as it could to this perfectly constructed you know narrative and made sure that structurally it was all in place and that that kind of made it easier but the process is always to be frightened because you know there's nothing in your future other than failure here's a good motivator and eventually you run out of time and your adrenaline is so highly you start right you have no choice yeah well I mean I think that's why I'm very lucky with Chris who really sort of tries to protect me I mean nobody else we finished the movie and then we show it to people then nobody else gets to see it and you ask you know what time to get up just I mean I work well you're not a morning person I work well it's late at night this is my morning yes and Chris is the morning person because you know he's he shoots you know but I realized that something happens about him coming over late at night or you know like Sunday evenings are really productive for us because it's not business you know he's now in the band somehow and it's the two of us jamming you know and it's not not like he's sitting there playing an instrument but where we were trying to construct an intellectual framework for what what the music can do in this movie the best thing I ever learned about how to do a movies from John Powell I said you know we're just about your procrastination what people think is procrastination and John said to me once well it's easy you just have to get it under your fingers and I think that's absolutely true because there comes a certain point where everything you play is on story is in the character of that movie and but it takes a while to get there you have to you have to learn you have to learn you have to invent you know the language you have to find the words you have to figure out what and how you want to say it and you have to figure out how you're going to say together with the filmmaker about Trent you didn't you didn't have the luxury of because you were on gone girl you were on tour so that must have been I mean if you had the time would you procrastinate and kind of let it go for a while I work I've learned over the years a deadline is productive no my new thing as I'm old now is before the Sun comes up I wake up and my timetable is probably opposite of years on I start with a full bucket of ideas midday and half by the end I'm defeated and I'm ready to just give up and start fresh and so my mornings are productive but where does that bucket of ideas come from well what I found is for one I think it's an intersection of a few things um in the in my day job of Nine Inch Nails and that world I would start songs by being inspired by sound sound design places things like the setting was important and then somehow song starts to emerge from that setting I have some friends who are producers who kind of browbeat me into thinking no to write a song is the opposite of that start with melody and the court doesn't matter how it's recorded doesn't matter what setting that's in and what that weird sound is in the background it's about being able to play it on a guitar and sing it and there's definitely merit to that concept and I understand but it's always been the other way around for me where the setting and the place and the mood is inspires what comes forth and I found in my film work it's replacing the idea that I would come up with as a song idea and trying to get in the sign in this case David's head and become familiar with the material and my strategy which has worked pretty well has been you know read the script or the novel become very intimate with what the spirit of the story is and then spend as much time with him as I can to to hear what he thinks about it what kind of film is he trying to make and pick up on phrases he might repeat or clues and breadcrumbs he drops and he's never specific about should be orchestral it needs to be balm and nothing like that there's just a feeling you get from him because I know he's thought about every aspect of what's happened every word every the slightest bit of set design detail he's been touching it and it but he never tells us what to do then I just take that and try to not think about composing music for that film but what what feels like it's in that world once what's that space feel like and then there's a choice of instrumentation that usually comes like what Hans was saying about let's not do this let's not use these things I've got my pallet of things I can do and techniques have come up with instruments I know how to play some what some better than others and then it's just kind of honing it on what that the story feels like you know is it analog and organic is it digital and I see is it human and orchestral is it broken down and dilapidated and that starts to move things off the table and what Atticus and I have done it tom has been very beneficial is first thing we do after we've absorbed the material and absorbed David's input is sit down very cerebral II say let's not use this this is just this let's start with these things and these techniques and then let's just turn off the consciousness and go complete subconscious right just right music and quickly within a couple weeks one an hour and a half of music of stuff and float that bind and we feel generally I don't know if this is his version of what the world of the film sounds like but it sounds like the story could take place in this in this environment and judge the reaction you know and then turn it over to David's team which is usually him and Kirk Baxter is editor Ren Kleist sound designer and five of us have a conversation and you can quickly tell hey that feels their eyes lit up about this stuff hmm this stuff not so great I'm not not so appropriate and that gives us enough feedback that now I can actually start that wordy explanation is kind of where it's narrowing down and consistent narrowing down the palette of what you write it's an intersection of what we think is right for the film but also what we is artists are inspired by at that time like you mentioned marimba x' which is a dilution of whatever's I've been interested whether it being rock music or something on the radio or film I just saw or whatever may come in I've noticed you know those cycles of inspiration when I'm really in tune loud noisy this and now I'm into something and hopefully there's something that's inspiring to me as a composer and artist that intersects with what I think's appropriate for this film I'm working on and then we kind of I think everybody here has some kind of connection to rock music which is interesting because rock music is very front and center it's very it grabs you and exposed to gravity whereas film music kind of is supposed to do the opposite is that right well now I wouldn't agree with that I wouldn't agree with that either I mean if you look at the last 75 years of film music there's a lot that would counter that that's a contemporary thing that I've heard very frequently it's not supposed to be noticed right but why is it not supposed to be noticed um I grew up on Alfred Hitchcock's films Bernard Herrmann and I noticed every note that Bernard Herrmann played in those movies so I go why was I supposed to notice it growing up but now somebody isn't so I think it depends on the film our films were the music supposed to melt into the background more and become more of a transparent support and there are films where clearly there's no reason why the music shouldn't be charging along as a major character front and center as much as anything else in the film it depends on the style of the film but as an overall concept which I've heard frequently in the last 10-15 years I find it a little bit baffling why that seems to be the consciousness of music and film but I don't think it's the consciousness of filmmakers I think I think it's just an old yeah do you hear that from vishay basically industry as a little you know people like doing interviews I've been I've heard that a number of times like well the music's supposed to not be noticed and I go why I don't think you guys actually get a whole lot of time to talk to each other right you guys don't really look direct a whole lot we all live in the same street and they never see each other so what's it like to you is it is it good to actually talk shop with one another like this I like hearing that there's others insecurities out there that's what I've gone on three of these and it's been really helpful to me to know that others are as a lecturer as I am it last time we spoke about not sleeping I remember we spent a lot of money obviously yeah but but the UH the unsureness of how other people feel I find very helpful because I'm unsure of everything still and know that others are often sometimes feel the same I found very but don't you think that's part of the job I mean no don't you think that is part of the journey if you were sure if you know the moment I feel sure I know I'm just chatting ups like it's a computer do change ego and because you have to be confident what you're doing in order to otherwise throw everything out right so but having that but also being insecure about it too because without that insecurity you're not going to push the boundaries to look further so I think it's like writing a very fine line I think you know the fact that it's a solitary business - I feel fortunate because I have buck you know we work we partner you have some of that you work with have people around you is important because it's I don't especially add on the the mountain where I am you know you begin to it easily let's go crazy yeah see you do you guys have social lives when you're working I mean what are your what are your lives outside of music like I do they exist it's kind of like a a joke you know I have a family that I occasionally see how do they deal with that when you have a composer as a husband father uh that's what I think you have to expect you know I remember saying to my wife this is you it will be rather like your single mother raising this child with my schedule day I understand that all right I think we have time for one last question and I'm curious do you guys doing you're working all the time when do you have time to actually listen to music for pleasure trying to want to shoot me a song that's a good question I've been out of any kind of routine coming off tour where I still have a suitcase open you know my house right now I'm been off tour for two months now so I'm havin kicked into a real routine and I haven't had a good location and I don't have anything set up right now where I actually have tons you sit and listen to music and the thing a lot about that because I've tried to always have in my life a place that's the priority is to listen to music not to do it while you're on the computer or something else but you harkening back to the old days of putting the needle on the vinyl Hocus thing on and there's no cell phone because it didn't exist and I was actually experiencing music some in between I don't have a good place at the moment airplanes cars would bribing them rolling for me okay this comes back to the very first question what's the hardest thing we find that is for me it's managing time you know between you know raising kids I try to spend time with and having a family but also putting everything you need into the film but even that like breaking that up until like how much time can you spend experimenting how much time do you have to you know do you have to figure things out and listening to music is it falls into that same category because I I feel like I'm deprived in a lot of areas and whereas I used to you know sit around and listen to records and all that it's just it's so hard I mean the most is I'll you know sit with the kids sometimes and listen with them but to have time I always feel like I don't know right now it seems everything seems so hectic I used to hike with headphones I listen to music but it got a bit weird because I'd get to the top of the hill and I'd be in tears because there was this thing to Puccini and people would kind of look come up to me go yes the view is beautiful I go what you know because I wasn't up there for the hiking really I was just listening I mean it was just a function of getting myself away doing something I didn't want to do which was hike and something I did want to do which was you know enjoy music which is the reason we all got into it I mean this is if you think about it we're only doing this because we're trying to extend our childhoods in some way we all got hooked on the ability to be able to get such transcendental pleasure from music that nothing else could touch it and you do listen to music do you guys do you listen to film music no [ __ ] no no why would you do that that's what do you listen to then cons what do you look like well pleasure okay I'm not going these crazy okay so you guys are gonna finger the Antichrist here because I go into these YouTube binges where I go like yesterday was a whole night of t-bone Walker but then that suddenly got me somewhere else kind of coming but it's you know I like old people perform no I like we're talking about music here I love I love looking at performances and I think YouTube is fantastic because even so you know it takes you to another place and sometimes it's people you've never heard of it's the last thing I do before I go to sleep yeah the strange thing for me I'm on interstellar was because it was so much you see here's the thing that original thing that Chris wrote for me he wrote it about a father and a son and then he did a switch on me in the movie it's a father and his daughter because he knew that I would be writing about my son Jake so that journey in a funny way for last two years was very much a journey between Jake and myself I mean he came to land naked you know we so he was part of a lot of the experiments it's the first person to see the movie so I mean this you know everybody keeps saying you know it it's a loud score maybe but it's a very little score it's really it's just very parcel I mean that's what we kept going back to that is actually at the end of the day it's just myself writing about my relationship to my child we will obviously incredibly jealous of hands and hands is relationship crazy that's that's the bottom line you know nobody kind of gets that one all right I think we're out of time so I'd like to thank you all for participating in The Hollywood Reporter round tables the composers Hans Zimmer John Powell Marco Beltrami Trent Reznor Daniel thank you gentlemen

Channel: The Hollywood Reporter

Views: 372,072

Rating: 4.9750676 out of 5

Keywords: The Hollywood Reporter, THR, magazine, round table, composers, John Powell, How to Train Your Dragon 2, old fashioned, 19th century themes, orchestra, The Bourne Identity, Jean Sibelius, Carl Nielsen, Marco Beltrami, The Homesman, Buck Sanders, Danny Elfman, Big Eyes, Tim Burton, Beetlejuice, Trent Reznor, Gone Girl, David Fincher, Nine Inch Nails, Atticus Ross, Hans Zimmer, Interstellar, Christopher Nolan, Batman, vinyl, Composer (Profession), roundtables, oscars 2015

Id: gSAF9_ZHjfc

Length: 49min 23sec (2963 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 23 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/davidaustin601]

In an odd way, it's reassuring that these individuals have such high insecurities.

[u/Belikejake]

I really enjoyed this.. thanks for sharing.

[u/hwangman]

I love stuff like this; insanely talented artists discussing their passion.

[u/4-string]

Reznor describing starting with an environment before a melody is almost like creating a sonic movie and then composing music for it.

[u/pitchingkeys]

I wish there were more videos like this where 3-5 people of the best at something get interviewed together. You end up learning a lot about the common qualities that the professionals share and the qualities that are unique to each individual. This video gave me some really good perspective on the life of a film composer. Thanks for sharing.