To do one good film, rather than accept poor films to score.

I makes me wonder why some composers accept such poor films.

Other than that, I too wonder why or how some composers get the scoring assignments they do.

Regards,
Sean Robert Abbey

An exception to this would be when a composer is hired after
a score has been rejected like in The Scarlet Letter. (Several
composers in this case.)

Anyway, a composer is hired early in the process, is contracted,
and then given the movie at various phases. Just this year Morricone
scored Mission to Mars, which was a critical UNsuccess. Yet,
he saw names like DePalma, Robbins, and Sinise. Based on their
previous work, I’d assume a strong movie would emerge. Then
there is Reindeer Games (which I have not seen) which died a fast
death at the box office. At one point, Goldsmith was to score it; then
came Silvestri. These two composers are looking at a movie directed
by an outstanding director, Frankenheimer, and that hosts a strong leading
cast, so why not accept this movie? Maybe I’m wrong, but there are
times when composers just can’t predict the final outcome of movie.
And whether or not the movie is good or bad, they will still be paid, and
if their score is solid, their CD’s will sell, albeit it does help to have a
box office smash.

Then there are those hidden little gems that no one expects will emerge.
In 1976 Bill Conti scored a movie scripted and starring an unknown
named Sly Stallone and that was directed by R. Advildsen, who really had
directed only one previous noteworthy movie. And look at the love
affair (and Oscars) America had for Rocky. Sometime movies that we (and
maybe composers) think won’t be box office hits, surprise us.

I must say though, I have turned down 3 feature films myself after seeing the rushes, so it's possible to get out of it.

plus there are the sequels so composers should already know what they are letting them in for.
ie.
Police Academy 6: City Under Seige
Police Academy: Mission to Moscow
Death Stalker 3 eathstalker and the Warriors from Hell
Revenge of the Nerds: Nerds in Love

Not forgetting the Terrible Title Giveaways
ie
The Screaming Skull
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies

Nothing much to tell though, I'll try to keep it succinct and not bore everyone.

Apart from the scoring I do a bit of writing and directing which I'm concentrating on now, apart from the hollywoodcomposers.com website

I starting writing late as my parents divorced when I was young and so I didn't really get the direction that I now know may of helped.

So at the tender age of 18 I started practicing the piano again (before the divorce I stared at 5), and I pretty much had an idea I wanted to be a musician like my father so I practised about 8 hours a day for 3 years, then I realised I had come to a point where I wasn't getting any better, and that I wouldn't 'cut it' as a gigging musician.

It was at this time that I bought the score for Batman and decided that I wanted to score films. After a few years I started sending out demo tapes to people in England (I used to live in London before I moved to the US), somehow a Director in England must have taken a tape over with him to LA and I got a call to do a Dennis Hopper movie.

...boring you yet? Sorry not much longer to go I promise

anyway, I didn't get it because I didn't have a base in LA, and they needed that because there was a 3 week deadline. Anyway I moved to LA after another call about 6 months later, and the same things happened again.

During my first year in LA, I was asked to do 6 feature films, 5 of which never happened (usual occurance), and the other one I turned down, becuase it was awful. It crossed my mind to do it because of the credit, but I prefer to go on my first instinct which was to drop it, so I did.

Anyway, about another 6 months later, and about another 4 other films that 'almost got into production', I was offered another Dennis Hopper movie, the writer somhow got hold of my tape and loved it so she passed it onto the producer and he called me, but.... The Director already had someone in mind so that never happened either.

So I decided rather than keep chasing after projects I would concentrate on my own, and just let the other films happen when they happen.

Thus my life story so far.

Well, composers - like the rest of us - have to make a living, you know. So they accept whatever comes their way. Unfortunately for them, sometimes "something wicked this way comes" and they're stuck with a turkey.

It's only guys like Williams, Goldsmith and Horner that can pick projects carefully and ditch others. New guys who are just starting out have to lower their demands a little (remember - Young did a lot of cheesy B or C-horror stuff early in his career, Williams did a lot of big band TV jazz, Herrmann did tons of mediocre radio stuff etc.).

But that doesn't mean that the big guys don't pick the wrong thing. As has been said already - if there's not a previous relationship between composer and director/producer/writer/etc. present - all a composer has to go with, is the strength of the names involved or the POTENTIAL of the script. That last thing is important. Usually composer are contractually attached to movies BEFORE the filming has fully materialized. This means that a film like THE HAUNTING may have started out as an interesting remake IN THEORY (and Goldsmith must have thought so too), but De Bont's eventual product has been harshly criticized (I haven't seen the film, so I cannot comment myself).

Luckily, poor films don't always mean poor scores, and the emergence of an excellent score from a poor film (THE SWARM, anyone?) is to the credit of a composer's artistic integrity/independence.

[This message has been edited by Thor (edited 14 April 2000).]

The way I see it is, if you're making good movies you don't have to worry about the income so why accept a potential turkey.

And as the the other end of the spectrum, if you're starting out and you feel you need all the credits you can get, chances are you're not going to be paid for your services anyway because of the budget. Another reason to pick carefully.

So the question is, can someone make it big by starting off doing loads of awful films rather than waiting for a good one first.

A recent name that springs to mind, although not a composer is director Sam Mendes - American Beauty, he waited 10 years for the perfect project to come along and I'm sure he's glad he didn't accept 10 turkey's before it, wouldn't you?

<<Luckily, poor films don't always mean poor scores, and the emergence of an excellent score from a poor film (THE SWARM, anyone?) is to the credit of a composer's artistic integrity/independence.>>

What about films that drastically improve through editing? I heard that The Usual Suspects was vastly improved through John Ottman’s editing. The final sequence was primarily his work. Because Byran Singer and John Ottman work together so well, this gelled perfectly.

I guess I don’t have any problem seeing why a name composer might score a less than an optimal film. You just never know!

>>The way I see it is, if you're making good movies you don't have to worry about the income so why accept a potential turkey.<<

But that's the problem. You don't know beforehand whether a film will be labeled "good" or not. Of course, no one sets out to make a bad movie. But sometimes, as MWRuger touched upon, a film production doesn't "click". When you work on an artistic project COLLECTIVELY - even with a powerful director on top, you're bound to encounter certain difficulties now and then. It is usually these type of film productions that suffer the most - at least if judging by the critics (13TH WARRIOR, WATERWORLD, THE HAUNTING etc.).

In other words, you have to be a REAL "potentially-success-spotter" in order to survive in the sociodarwinistic film biz.

Enjoy life? I don't know, but judging on the amount of B movie feature films I've seen in the editing rooms, it seems like everyone wants to make a film, no matter how bad it is. I guess I'm looking at it as doing something worthwhile with you time while your here.

By the way, I'm not talking about all those films that make it to the mass publics' attention either, so don't get me wrong, I I understand completely that those projects are impossible to predict, I'm ONLY talking about the B movies that are done for the sake of 'making a movie'.

I personally learned a lot from Christopher Young's experience. He scored some rather
poor movies, and he was discovered because of his unique sound.

I would rather score well a very poor movie
and send out my tapes to directors and producers than refuse to score at all and only be able to hope someone hears my silence.

<<I would rather score well a very poor movie
and send out my tapes to directors and producers than refuse to score at all and only be able to hope someone hears my silence.>>

Although you can write a piece of music with a better scene created in your mind rather than a very poor movie, (at least in my experience) and then you could send that out instead. Nobody would be any the wiser.

But here's a thought that always comes to mind when I discuss it:

Jerry Goldsmith always gets criticized for scoring films like SUPERGIRL or THE SWARM, but...

is there a genius behind this?--this being the fact that in so many of the films that Goldsmith puts his imprint upon, his contribution is the most appealing part of the production.

Look at the two films already mentioned, THE BLUE MAX, THE WIND AND THE LION, LOGAN'S RUN, STAR TREK-THE MOTION PICTURE, THE FINAL CONFLICT, RAMBO, LEGEND, LIONHEART, STAR TREK V, THE RUSSIA HOUSE...

...do I really need to even include the past ten years?

Talking about that, I wonder if Marco Beltrami will be recognised for more than just Horror scores as I think he has been labelled by a lot of filmmakers as a horror writer now.

quote:

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The Lion King also made me reassess my situation in this town. You can go two ways. I admit that standing on the stage getting an Oscar is the most seductive moment one can have in one's life. It is truly overwhelming. And then you go, wow, if I just carry on writing nice music like this, I can have this moment again. It's a very Faustian sort of thing. That's why I did the exact opposite, scoring for truly offensive projects like The Fan. Just to shake myself out of the desire for that Oscar experience. Otherwise I would just stagnate. Nothing new would happen. For me, it's still about trying to write decent music. Ironically, despite all the scores I've written, there are very few I'm proud of.

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