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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			< last page \| 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 \| next page > JB: What do you think it takes these days for someone to start out in film music? What kind of tools should they have? AS: I would say ideally, you should never stop working on the techniques and crafts of your art, no matter what it is. So if one finds oneself settling for an existing level of proficiency, then that's what that is. But certainly being concerned about what's gone before is of no use and you can spend all the time you want on craft and still have nothing to say. Of course, having something to say, they can't be separated. That's where the music is, where they come together. So for someone starting out, I think there are a lot of things that are important. Constantly working on the craft from wherever one is. And that can be at a very elementary stage or a very advanced stage. I think it's important for anyone involved in film to be exposed to literature from the point of view of stories. What is a story? How do they work? How do they come together? How am I touched by a story? Because, for me, that's work on the thought side and the emotional side. It's work in the direction of having something to say and having one's inner world expand so that there is more depth of things to say. That's got to coincide with working on techniques so that one is able to say more and have greater facility for expressing it. In terms of getting into the film business, it's one of those things where probably every case is completely different. Certainly with the technology as it stands, anyone can go out and buy a video cassette and score that movie in their home and begin to get some feedback. Anyone can write the main title song to any movie and put it over the images or write the score or write a scene from any movie and see it with the film. They might not hear the dialogue and all, but they can see it with the images and you have to practice. Something will come from that, not everything, but it's certainly a big help. JB: It would probably be an interesting thing to have like they have music minus one to have film minus music. AS: That's what was happening at Sundance. There were specific scenes taken from movies that have not been scored or movies that had been scored but they had rough footage of it. And everyone would get one scene from one movie and they would writer the music for it. They would all be different, but I mean really different. And it wasn't like one was great and four were not. You could see three great versions of a scene. And so different. Directors now have the possibility of experimenting with some degree with temp dubs which was more of a necessity. They needed something there because they had to show their picture to the studio far in advance of having it scored and they don't want to sit through 110 minutes of film with no music in it because it can be deadly, especially if it's an action film. So what happens is as soon as they get close to an assembly, most film companies hire a music editor to come and start constructing a temp dub. Plus they have their blind prints where they have to show the film well in advance to its being completed and scored to exhibitors. So it's important that there be music. That then gives the filmmakers the chance to see their film with music. And of course they can use the greatest music that's ever been written for film or whatever else because it's all out there on records and CDs and tapes and literally there are just cuts from things or transferred off. You'll watch a scene in your movie with the main title of Star Wars with this enormous orchestra and you'll get to see something about how your film's playing. Now the stage from there is very often a composer is brought in and he watches that. It's not a bad thing if the filmmakers are completely aware of the fact that this is now a tool for them. JB: They haven't gotten married to this. AS: Exactly. And sometimes they do and then that creates its own obvious problems. Once again, it comes back to the intelligence and focus of the people involved. It's the same analogy as the musician who falls off the piano bench onto the floor in the middle of writing a song to start aligning some machine. It's the same thing. If the film editor falls off the editing bench into the temp dub and forgets that it's about keeping the focus, that this is a tool to indicate an aspect of the scene that you want to communicate to an audience and that that's the point of view that has to be looked at for the composer. The smart ones know about that. I've sat during the temp dub with the director and the director realizes that he has now just made a compromise in his film by showing you the temp dub. The smart ones understand that. And the compromise is I have just removed this composer's first impression of my film. And I have removed his unconditioned response to my movie. So what's the upside? What do I get for it? Well, a smart one may show you the film first of all without any music and then show you his temp dub. Then he gets both. JB: This gives you an idea of what kind of thing he wants. AS: Exactly. But lets you see it first without the temp dub. The upside of the temp dub is that if it's used as a tool for the filmmaker he now has maybe no musical training or vocabulary, but he has music to talk about. Now we're both looking at a pillow. He says see, there's some stripes in there that are real light. Is that mauve. I don't like that. So you're no longer talking about the technique. You're talking about the impressions. So a director will look at a scene and say I like the pace of this music. I like the scope of this music. I hate this kind of chunky part that comes in here. I think it's too disruptive. I like this flowing and that's valuable. When you arrive on the soundstage and you have a 100-piece orchestra out there, you're going through about $35,000-$50,000 a day and any indication that you can get about anything in terms of the filmmaker's wishes is valuable. And then within that, it doesn't have to be an intrusion into one's creativity. You are either involved in a collaborative art or you're not. The moment you say yes to doing a film, you have just signed on to a ship of which you are not the captain. And that must never be forgotten. If you want to be the captain, then you stay in your room and write your music for yourself. You are there to collaborate and be part of the crew, albeit you're asked to make this tremendously high-profile contribution. But you are not the last word. There is a captain of the ship ideally. Of course, every film composer who's been out there doing it for awhile has signed on to ships where once you get outside of land, the captain cuts his throat and jumps off the boat. There you all are adrift and no one knows where they want to go or why. Then it's every man for himself and you have a picture that looks like the captain just jumped off the boat and killed himself. That's pretty interesting how that works. < last page \| 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 \| next page >