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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 JB: That really is the right brain - left brain process. In talking about songwriting, there are several parallels to that: is that there are people who are starters and there are people who are great finishers writing songs. Some people say, "I had this great idea, but what I do with it after this ..." Other people who are more left brain oriented will see that as a problem to solve and will get excited trying to figure out how to make this work. There's also the process, referred to as a "stream of consciousness" process to start with, that when you're writing lyrics, it's much easier to just sit down and write whatever comes to your head, write pages of stuff and get the idea down so that you've developed an idea and all the things that you can think of, before you start getting hung up in "does this rhyme?," "is this meter right?" and do it line by line. Some people can do it that way -- going line by line and building it that way, but it's a different kind of process. Most people, I find, have better luck doing the process that you're talking about where you get to your initial emotional "hit" where you're being stimulated in some way where you can get that out in a real simple way and then go back, and then your critical facility takes over later and says, "well, this should maybe be changed a little here ... " AS: It was so vivid to me -- and this is not that long ago. I was working on a project where we were getting squeezed pretty bad for time and it was because of that that I thought I would try to short circuit what had come to be my process and I thought that just to save time I'll go right to something that's more detailed than normally and I spent one of the most horrid days writing than I had experienced in ten years. And I fell for it. That's what was interesting. I was like a crazed person, you know, negative and couldn't write and "I have no ideas" and kvetching and all, and it was not until the end of the day that I realized what I had done that I had confused the issue. I had forgotten the process and kind of didn't have any respect for it. I thought that I could somehow willfully change it, but those pieces don't go together. Before that experience, I would not have been able to articulate what we've both articulated in our own way today, but this was a first-hand experience of it. Of course, the idea to do it that way was abandoned and I got up the next morning and it came out all at once. The whole cue came out all at once, so it's pretty remarkable. It's difficult, probably, to communicate that and if you're attempting that, I think it's an incredibly worthwhile effort because even short of experience, I think people who have not come upon a kind of meshing with the creative process will certainly have come upon the effects of not being in step with it and the frustration. That will all be very recognizable. JB: That's what translates into writer's blocks. That's what behind some of that, that there is a process that is natural for you and you've ignored it, no matter what it is. There might be people who have a process just the opposite of yours but that's natural for them and it works. AS: And that's what we need to find -- how my organism derives and develops material. I think that's very worthwhile because nothing can grow in that confused environment. It's almost like the initial concepts are moving so quickly that they can't exist in this heavier air of development. And so, if you have two different atmospheres, living environments, that both of these energies have to function in and you can't expect one to exist in the wrong environment and so the job is to kind of do some gardening here. JB: I always hate someone to come and say, "You know, I don't think I'm doing this right," as though there really is a right way to do it, "because I know somebody else who does it differently and I just can't so maybe I'm just not happenin'." And to destroy their confidence because they don't operate the way somebody they admire operates and they think it has to be done that way. AS: I had a piano teacher who used to call that "insipient leprosy." And here's where the story came from: I walked into his place and I had been doing some counterpoint exercises and of course, I didn't do any of them this week. And I went in to see this guy and I had this meaningful pitch, because I'd really come to something, which is exactly what you've explained. I just don't know if I really should be writing and I don't know if I can really do this. There seem to be people [who do it better].... and he listened very attentively while I poured my heart out to him about the difficulties of writing and he sat way back in his recliner, with his cigar, and said, "Yep! Insipient leprosy!" I was in the middle of this confession and he said that ... and he explained, "Well, ya know, that's kind of how it starts, and then you're going to find like in a couple days your arm's gonna drop off, your right arm. And then in a couple days, your left arm will drop off and then it will happen with your left leg and your right leg, and then that's it." I remember just being kind of riveted by the guy, it's hard to communicate the emotional aspect of it, but if I had to look back on it, the adolescent attitude is not acceptable and it's not what any of us wish for ourselves. The excuse-making process has got to be seen for what it is, by us personally, for something else to appear. This was an instance of pure shock value, the way this old timer shocked me into sitting there in my filth, in a sense, and having to take a look at it for what it was. When anyone can do that for us and assist us, I think that's really what living is all about. We need to get some kind of view of our captivity and creativity, although it may rhyme with captivity, is really on the opposite end of the spectrum ... almost not even in the same world. It's a different world. That's why we want to be more free and clear to let things happen. < last page \| 1, 2, 3, 4, 5