SCORE: A Film Music Documentary — The Interviews

by Matt Schrader

The world's finest film composers uncover the secrets behind film music, from crafting emotions and making it in Hollywood, to the tricks of giving an audience goosebumps.

Summary

Composers Hans Zimmer (The Lion King, Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Dark Knight, Inception), Quincy Jones (The Color Purple, The Pawnbroker, In Cold Blood), Randy Newman (Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., The Natural), Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Seven), Trent Reznor (The Social Network, Gone Girl, Nine Inch Nails), Tom Holkenborg (Mad Max: Fury Road, Batman v. Superman) and more. Plus, hear rare insight from director James Cameron and the legacy of James Horner, along with one of the final interviews conducted with legendary director Garry Marshall.

Modern maestros reveal their creative secrets.

Composer David Arnold: Bond, the British sound and using music from dreams.
Director James Cameron: How score shapes a film and working with James Horner.
Composer Quincy Jones: Music's evolution and emotive power on us.
Composer Randy Newman: Great film music in history and scoring for animated films.
Composer Rachel Portman: Using music to your advantage and female film composers.
Composer Howard Shore: The great epic film score and connecting all the dots.
Composer Hans Zimmer: The joy (and vulnerability) of musical experimentation.
Director Garry Marshall: How to use music to fill, fix and enhance film.
Composer Bear McCreary: Creating an efficient, tight-knit film composing team.
Goosebumps and exploring music's cutting edge.

Composers Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross: Production value and the film score as an album.
Composer Brian Tyler: Growth, excitement and striving for perfection.
Composer Mychael Danna: Musical styles across different nationalities.
Composer Tom Holkenborg: Intensity and goosebumps.
Composer Harry Gregson-Williams: Traditional score meets technology.
Composer Steve Jablonsky: Reinventing electronic sounds.
Composer John Debney: Inspirations from childhood to the scoring stage.
Composer Trevor Rabin: Wrestling with the clock and working with producers.
Composer Patrick Doyle: Life and passion reflecting through music.
Inspiration and film music's worldwide impact across languages.

Composer Mervyn Warren: A record producer approach to film scores.
Composer John Powell: Flipping the film score on its head.
Composer Alexandre Desplat: International influence and the beauty of music.
Composer Elliot Goldenthal: Deadline pressure and mastering a sound.
Composer Henry Jackman: The British film score invasion and melody.
Composer Marco Beltrami: Finding the right sound and music for thrillers.
Composer Mark Mothersbaugh: The rockstar-turned-composer.
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Genres: Nonfiction, Music

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Corinna Hogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of interviews! It’s really interesting to see how differently people can approach the same tasks. People seem to very enthusiastically divide themselves into the camps of “music manipulates the audience!” and “music should never manipulate the audience!” The individual interviews were interesting, but to me the main value came from seeing such an array of different perspectives. Super interesting! Although, I must say I particularly enjoyed Rachel Portman’s interview. I also love the score she wrote for Chocolát. Never seen the movie, but damn that’s a good soundtrack.

Some of these interviews leave you a tad deflated, people like Randy Newman (Randy Newman! From Pixar! From Toy Story and Monsters Inc!) seem to really not care very much and just do it for the paycheck. HOW someone like him can write such incredible scores with an equally incredible lack of passion (at least how I perceived the interview) is amazing to me. But most of the others left me happy and inspired. Most people really love this art form and have very unique ways of creating the most magic they can.

I also gained a whole lot of respect for Hans Zimmer through these interviews. His own thoughts were cool, but I had no idea about the company he created and how he’d basically created a village for mentoring and educating aspiring film composers. The man really has made a huge impact on film scoring way beyond his own music and I respect that a lot. He was apparently instrumental (ha) in the careers of John Powell (How to Train Your Dragon) and Henry Gregson-Williams (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), who have amazing careers and wrote two of my favorite film scores of all time. So the whole thing is just really cool.

[Daniela Villalobos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muy interesante, las diferentes formas en que estos compositores lograron involucrarse dentro de este mundo. Diversas e increíbles opiniones, consejos y perspectivas respecto a el mundo que la música es capaz de crear.

[Sher · Rating 5 out of 5]

love it. a great read.

[Lord · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8

[Matt Whitby · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't get me wrong, this is an interesting read but no one - NO ONE - proofread it. I've never read a book with more errors in than this.

[Randall Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful interviews,insightful and fantastic