Gramophone – September 2019

gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONESEPTEMBER 201923

ohn Williams’s craft,

his technical approach

to film scoring, is one

shared by almost all

film composers from

the dawn of cinema to

at least the 1980s. Director

Steven Spielberg summarised

it neatly in 2016: ‘Everybody,

except John, makes the movie.

Thousands of people from

all over the world working

together for months,

sometimes for years, and then

finally we show our work to

him ... John watches the

movie and he goes back to his

house and he sits alone with

a yellow pad and a pencil at his

100-year-old Steinway piano

andhebeginstowrite...’

FROMPENCILANDPAPER

TOCOMPUTERS

Inthe40-oddyearssince

Williamsscoredthelikesof

Jaws(1975),StarWars(from

1977)andET:TheExtra-

Terrestrial(1982),

technologicaldevelopments

haverevolutionisedtheway

thatfilmsareproduced–

includinghowthemusicis

composed.Britishcomposer

BenjaminWallfisch–whose

careerhastakenhimfrom

writingclassicalconcertmusic,

toassistingandco-writing

soundtrackswithHans

Zimmer(HiddenFigures,2016;

BladeRunner 2049 ,2017),to

beingtheleadcomposeron

majorHollywoodscoresfor

filmssuchasIt(2017)and

Shazam!(2019)–hasadeep

understandingofboth

Williams’straditional

techniquesandhowfilmmusiciswrittentoday.‘About 12 years

agoIwasinvitedtospendanafternoonlookingthrough

Williams’soriginalpencilsketches,andeversincethenI’vetried

tobeastudentofhisprocess,eventhoughIwriteeverythingon

acomputer-basedsystem,’hesays.‘Seeingcueslike“Adventures

onEarth”orthe“ImperialMarch”inshortscoregives

afascinatinginsightintohisprocess,wherethereissuch

incrediblefluencyandmomentumtothewritingbutwith

absolutelynocompromisewhenitcomestoeverysingledetail

oforchestrationandcolourbeingclearlynotated.There’s

certainlyalottobelearntfromstudyingthosesketches,the

biggesttakeawayperhapsbeinghowquicklytheideascanflow

whenallyouhaveispencilandmanuscriptpaper.’

Flow.That’sthekeyfacetofthefilmcomposer’scraft.

Becausefilmcomposershavetoworksofast,theymustbe

mastersofthetoolstheyhavetohand,whetherthattoolis

agrandpianooracomputer.Williamswasclassicallytrained

and has always written his musiconmanuscriptpaper,soforhim

that was the most natural, most fluent way of composing. But

a film composer’s job today is very different.

One practice that film composers have had to adopt is that

of producing ‘mock-ups’ of their cues so that directors and

producers can approve the music before the time comes to

record it with real musicians. Wallfisch explains: ‘Computer-

based sequencers give us the opportunity to present our music to

our film-makers in a really detailed and accurate way. It has

become the exception to write using pencil and paper, and this

I think is also in part owing to the bigger picture of how

film-making techniques have moved on over the last

20 years or so with the advent of non-linear editing. Editors used

to have to physically splice film linearly using a razor blade, and

find alternative takes from huge bins full of celluloid; now

everything is done inside a system such as Avid or Final Cut,

where every editorial option can be quickly auditioned.

The same is true for music: we now have digital tools where

a film-maker can reach out and touch every detail of the music

before its finalised, and I think that’s a very important part of

theprocessnow.’

Sotoday’sfilmcomposersarenolonger‘just’composers.

Tomaketheirmock-upssoundasconvincingaspossiblethey

alsohavetoberecordingmixers,engineers,orchestratorsand

producers.It’sasteeplearningcurveifallyou’veeverdone

beforeissitatapianowithpencilinhand.

ANEWSOUNDWORLD

Buttheuseofelectronicsgoeswaybeyondthesepracticalneeds,

andisnowmuchmorecentraltothecraftoffilmcomposition

itself.Composerstodaywilltryasmuchaspossibletomake

sometimeforexperimentation,forrecordingandmakingnew

soundsthatarebespoketotheprojectinquestion.American

ThomasNewmanoftengathersasmallgroupoftrusted

musiciansintohisstudioearlyontocreatebedsofsound

(drones,pads,textures),ontopofwhichhewillthenwriteand

develophisthemes,ratherlikeapainteraddingawashofcolour

toawhitecanvasbeforefillinginthedetail.Dutchcomposer

TomHolkenborg,ontheotherhand,drawsonhisbackground

inelectronicdancemusictocreatesynthesisedsoundscapes,

andalsototransformanddistortthesoundsoftraditional

classicalinstrumentsaftertheyhavebeenrecorded.Zimmer,

meanwhile–whohasproventobeahugeinfluenceovertheway

thatallmediacomposersworktoday,thankstohispioneering

experimentsinelectronicsandsampling–dedicatedmany

monthstonoiseandsoundmanipulation(producingmorethan

9000 barsofmaterial)toarriveattheoneperfect,ever-evolving

tonethatconveysthemalevolentcharacteroftheJokerin

TheDarkKnight(2008).

Anaturalupshotoftoday’sfilmcomposersbeingadeptin

bothclassicalorchestrationandelectronic,computer-based

music,istheconceptthatallsound,regardlessofitssource,can

nowbetreatedequally.Althoughtheuseofnon-Western

instrumentsinHollywoodfilmscoreshasbeencommonfor

decades,wearenowtrulyinaplacewheresomeofthemost

genre-bending,experimentalandopen-mindedmusictobe

foundanywhereintheworldisbeingcomposedtoaccompany

Thomas Newman gathers a group of

musicians into his studio to create beds of

sound on top of which he’ll add his themes

PHOTOGRAPHY:

MICHAEL HUMPHREY

COMPOSING FILM MUSIC