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	Interview: Alan Silvestri
	Writing for Film and TV SONGS FOR FILM & TV MUSIC SUPERVISION 101 PRODUCTION MUSIC LIBRARIES SONGWRITING DEALS FOR FILMS RESOURCES INTERVIEW: DANNY ELFMAN INTERVIEW: ALAN SILVESTRI			I interviewed film composer Alan Silvestri for the LASS Musepaper in March 1991. It turned out to be one of the best for Alan's wonderful ability to articulate his process in scoring films. Though it's not a current interview, this information is timeless. If you'd like to see a current bio and filmography, please go to http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/misc/personal/cm1jwb/silvestr.htm JB: Let's talk about the physical process of scoring a film. AS: This is an animation film and they very often have peculiar problems because of their very nature. They're kind of like a Polaroid picture. The process starts and the image of the film slowly starts to appear over time. It takes a long time to start to see what that is. When I did Roger Rabbit, I think they were getting 12 feet of film a week. Unlike shooting a day of film and then watching dailies the next day. The animation is ever so slightly different because of its nature. JB: So at what point do they bring you into the process? AS: I've always felt that the film makers who a larger perspective, a larger view, don't seem to hesitate getting a composer involved very early on. I know with Bob Zemeckis, he gets me involved before he even goes to shoot. I see a script I hear about. He tells me the story at dinner before he's ready to go. I'm in constant touch with the project while he's shooting, I'll spend some time on the set, I'll see the first assembly of the film, I'll see every screening from there on. That's really the most effective way, and I think because it's about assisting the director in its most ideal sense. I think the job is to assist the director in achieving a vision of the film. And in order to be more effective at that, you can't have too much communication or interaction with the filmmaker. I've been in every kind of situation. I've been in that kind of total immersion with Bob and I've been in situations where I'll have one meeting with the director and then that's it! And not even see the person on the scoring stage. JB: And not talk to him? AS: I even had a situation where the director didn't even spot the film with me. I spotted it with the editor alone. It's a tremendous opportunity lost because if you're a director, you're directing everything. The music is such an important and such a potentially tremendous tool for a filmmaker to achieve his overall impression of what it is he or she is trying to say. If they do not take advantage of it, it's a missed opportunity. It's a tool that's left on the table somewhere. So they're all those ranges. Ideally, it's never too soon to get involved. JB: When you get involved in a project like that, do you actually start coming up with themes? AS: Not necessarily for me. For instance going to the set where there's some activity, I think it helps to see anything that will begin to give you some images. I also think that you can be infected by the energy of the project, which is good. To start to feel the enthusiasm and to start to see the excitement and feel the excitement...that starts to evoke things. Even though you might not sit down at that point and start writing out a theme, you've been exposed. So it's in there working and it's what I find when I'm actually into the writing of the score. I may be sitting at the table for "x" number of hours a day, but I'm not working on that film until it's over. Wherever I am, it's active somehow. So that exposure, even though you might not go back and start writing the theme, I still know that I'm banking hours of input that will be there working on their own. So when it comes to be time to do something, it's already had a kind of organic life that precedes what I'm about to do. So I'm not just starting to write something. It's in there working. It's gestating in a sense. JB: You just piled up the images and reference points... AS: That's right. It's an exposure. And if you're exposed early, it has a maturity factor. So that when it comes time to say something, you haven't just heard about the issue for the first time. You've been living with it, in some sense. You've gone through some stages of a creative cycle even though you haven't actually sat down to write something. You've had thoughts about it and you've gotten over thoughts about it. So you're not taking only your first impressions. First impressions are extremely important because you're having some real ongoing contact which is valuable. JB: When you read a script, initially that has to tell you about the setting and the time of the film in terms of what kinds of musical styles would be appropriate. AS: Sometimes I've found myself in the position where I've read a script and been asked to have a music meeting to talk about music in a specific way that I feel is unwarranted for where we are. If you take a script, if not all scripts, and hand them to 10 different directors, you will be beyond amazed at the 10 different movies you're going to see. And the score is the same thing. So I think there is a tremendous amount of latitude left in the script and intentionally left in the script. And that's what a script it. It is a blueprint for making a film. It is not a finished building. It allows for a tremendous amount of creativity and input by the builder. JB: So it's possible that if you got started too early on something, you could be all wrong by the time the movie's finished. AS: Absolutely. Things happen and there's nothing like seeing the images, which you cannot really get from going to a set and watching them shoot a scene. It's very difference seeing the film project than it is to see actors on a soundstage or out on location shooting a scene. There's no indication of other elements that occur when things are put together. You might see one shot or two shots in what will ultimately be a long scene and really not get what the scene is about from those shots until you see the scene put together. So I think there's no real reason to be too hasty about that. Of course, if you have this news flash, bolt of lightning reaction to something you see, there's nothing wrong with going back and writing something down that you feel captures the essence of what you see, because you may be absolutely dead-on with that. So once again, there's no rules. JB: What is the process of turning an emotional feeling into music? What are the parameters of that? That's kind of a mysterious place. AS: It is. The closest I can get to speaking about how it feels and how it is for me is that in a sense, because of the nature of what my position in the film process is, I'm being asked to converse with the film on this emotional, psychological, physical level. And I'm asked to make my comments with notes. So here's where the mystery begins. You will begin to have things to say. I'll watch a scene, I'll have something to say, right or wrong, about what I'm watching and I will then proceed to sit down and say it. And it's interesting. I'm rarely at a loss for something to say in a conversation and I think that would be true for most people. The same thing applies to working with a piece of film and writing. I don't experience what I've heard as writer's block, the way that I've heard it spoken. I experience greater and lesser difficulty in expressing the thought or the feeling in conversation with the film, in terms of I haven't found the notes yet that say it for me. If that's what being called writer's block, then I can understand that. But it's not just about music. When people say they don't have anything to say, I don't get that. As I said, I know very few people who run out of things to say in a conversation. We have comments when we see something. JB: But one side of the dialogue is already provided for you when you have a film. What some people get into is that they're not stimulated by anything around them. AS: That's very dangerous, because it immediately indicates you don't know what your mission is. You don't know why you're there, you don't know what you're supposed to be doing. Forget about having a conversation with someone. You don't know why you're in the room. I think that's a real fundamental difficulty for people in our place in the film process. And it's so simple, because there you are, you've just said it. JB: You have to have access to a musical vocabulary that allows you to make those translations. AS: That is the whole craft aspect, the experience aspect of being a composer/musician. However, as I think most of us have discerned in various experiences in our lives, we can hear something eloquently said with tremendous command of the language, with no heart, with no impact, with nothing of interest in it. Sheer technique. And then we can hear an incredibly powerful thought, more clumsily expressed, and be impressed and impacted by it. They have to be separated and of course the ultimate is have fine ideas and find means of expression. And then you have a Mozart, you know, where the two come together. And there are probably examples all throughout the musical history of this planet where you can find the weighting of the balance between fine thought and fine technique and how you may hear some person's music. And the impression of an incredibly facile technician not really saying too much and then someone who does not have the gift of technique of so-and-so and yet, this composer speaks about something that has a weight and a depth to it. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 \| next page >