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I don't know if you know how legendary the debacle was, behind the scenes in X-Men 1,

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they still talk about it to this day, you know, the meltdowns that happened and so forth.

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They had five editors on board and I guess they hated each other and they all hated Brian.

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It was like this whole crazy thing.

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Brian, through X-Men 1, would say, well, John would do this.

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Well, John would do this. Well, John would do this.

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Well, John would do this. He wanted everything to work the way we work.

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And I'll never forget, I walked into the final dub of X-Men 1 just to say hi, you know.

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The editor was up at the console with the mixer.

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Oh, it's John Altman and that guy's head whipped around and laser beams could have come out of his eyes

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and blasted my head off, you know.

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Hello, John. Welcome to Half the Pitcher. How are you doing today?

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I'm good. Good to be here. Thanks.

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All right. It's a real pleasure to have you on. We were saying before we started,

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but like I was a fan of yours, I think from when I first saw X-Men 2,

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which is a fantastic film and for me, it still holds up.

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And I saw your credit as, you know, as accredited to editor John Altman, composer John Altman.

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And I was like, oh, okay, this is interesting. This guy's got both bases covered.

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And then all... That was a scary one for me because, you know,

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I'd really done that with a smaller film, which was usual suspects.

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And when I was brought under this thing, it was a BMF and I told the story before,

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where I was just so freaked out about writing, you know, or two-hour film score and trying to

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also cut the whole movie. And I brought this, then I, um, my mini gear, my music studio,

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into the editing room. And there was just no time. And so I would stare at it.

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It would stress me out so much like I built a wall. So I wouldn't have to look at it,

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because it would just really freak me out. But, um, anyway, I ended up writing all the themes,

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at least. And then just worried about it the whole time I was editing.

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When I was at a write, this frickin' score. So, um, but it worked out somehow. I don't know,

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I mean, I looked back and, you know, I was so young then. And I'm still full of energy,

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but it's like, I couldn't put myself through that again. You know, only for maybe 20 years,

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could I do that, you know? And then, uh, when we, uh, I was going to basically,

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after X-Men Apocos, I said that said, I can't do this anymore. It's just too much.

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And, uh, and then, of course, you had to dangle the character,

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Brian Singer at the dangle, the character of Booyan Rhapsody. So I'm like, how do I say no to that?

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And so then, you know, the rest of the story, you know. Um, but I didn't end up writing the score,

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actually, because I didn't feel a score would be appropriate, you know, it was sort of date,

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date to film, you know, so I used all the tracks with clean and so forth.

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Of course, of course. And the breadth of your work is fantastic. I mean, you mentioned Booyan Rhapsody,

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of course, which you got the Oscar for the best editing. But also, as I say, X-Men,

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the XR movies, X2, Days of Future Past, Apocalypse, you know, Superman Returns,

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usual suspects, the nice guys that have a great score and Kiscus Bam Bam. You've,

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you've done so much fantastic work. And, and looking back over your career in the run up to this

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chat, it was extraordinary to me how you've been able to balance those two disciplines throughout

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your career of being a film editor and composer, because we've had, you know, film editors and

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film composers on this pod, you know, separately over the years. And like the amount of work that

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goes into both of those disciplines, where, you know, when it comes to film and television and

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beyond, you know, is extraordinary. So to be chatting to someone who can, he does both at the same

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time on huge scale movies is quite extraordinary. So I hear, so I hear what you're saying when you

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just said there about how I guess did it feel like you're ever going to explode when doing all that

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work? Yeah, I mean, I would lose like 25 pounds in a bad way. I would believe those films,

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I looked like Skeletor, you know, so I just like, you know, there's only so many years I can keep

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doing both those jobs. And I was doing three times, three jobs as well. I've sometimes I was producing

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as well and take up the slack for certain video secrets he's going on behind the scenes. So, you

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know, it was quite a, quite a ride. And then, you know, my story goes, you know, every time that,

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we had a lull between projects I was trying to put films together to direct. And then just when

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something would start taking off, Brian would come up with a dangling carrot again and saying,

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you know, you want to ride a big giant film score, you know, blah, blah, and I would just take the

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carrot, you know. And so, because you don't know that, you know, directing, getting films off the

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ground was a crack shoot. So, and you got a sure thing, you know, take it so that I would go back to

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editing jail for another year or two, depending on what the film was. And, you know, it was a weird

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career because, you know, I went to this BMI dinner one day, which is, I mean, I would go every

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year, which is where the composers get this little award for all these, for the films they do

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that make a good box office. It's really a weird award ceremony. It's based on money only.

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It's like, if you did a film worth, you know, it made so much money in an award. But, I would sit

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at that dinner and, you know, and the composers around you had had four or five of those things,

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putting on the table, you know, and each of those represents all these royalties in the future.

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And I have, I get my one because I put on a trap on a film as the editor for two years, you know,

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and I'm like, well, when am I doing, you know, but, I don't know, it was great to be in control

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of something, though. I tend to sort of, you know, like be able to be at the top of totem pole.

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And so when you're just a lowly composer sometimes, when I'm a film not cutting, it's to be frustrating.

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So, you know, but that glee of being in control lasts for about a couple of months. And I'm

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then I'm over. It's like, then I got other, you know, years or more to go. So, yeah, anyway,

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so I sort of like been avoiding that situation recently until I got reeled into the Michael Jackson

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thing, you know. Of course, of course. And before we go, I must say that we were talking before

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we started, but like the whole film posters behind you are fantastic. I mean, would you mind walking

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us through what you've got behind you there? Some sci-fi? Yeah, well, you know, I wanted to get a

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foreign version of all these posters, but they were really tiny. And I had this big wall behind me.

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So I blew them up on Candace. And so, you know, you have the, I think the German closing commers.

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And I don't know, like, I think that's, uh, do the wish foots still. And what is that like there?

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I forgot. And Chinese took out one and a spathic Spanish, uh, the plenty of the apes.

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So, yeah, we're seeing it's like I, you know, I've always been my whole life a sci-fi guy,

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this, you know, watching Star Trek. And, uh, and, and all the films I would make were revenge movies

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or thrillers. And so it's sort of funny that I got, you know, uh, you know, into this biopic

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world, you know, it's sort of similar to when I got into the X-Men world. And then at doing

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Superman and scoring those fantastic four films, I'd never pick up a comic book in my life. And so,

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you know, it's funny how you get, you get, uh, you suddenly known in this world for, for being

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the expert or whatever in this particular thing. Um, but, um, you know, but, you know, it's,

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it's, uh, you know, one of my guilty ignitions was that, and this is going to be shocking. I know

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the most people, uh, probably as I was just just neuro-listing to Jared Goldsmith and John Williams

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and hearing things in the radio, but not really being fanned. I, I somehow got through life,

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not really being cognizant of Bohemian rhapsody, the song. And so what I started to film,

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really, you know, but it, but it's sort of a, it sort of makes sense because, you know, when I

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get on a film, I just, I just immersed myself as a director would into a subject matter. And so,

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he become, uh, more of a fan and expert in that particular band or, or, or, or, or in this,

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or, or in the case of the superhero films X-Men and so forth. Um, you really just dive into the

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world and, and, um, and you just want to tell us good story, you know, though, I was the Michael

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Jack, a fan, I guess, but not, I wasn't like running the concerts and so forth. I know all this

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music happened, you know, right? But it wasn't, I wasn't running on getting albums. And so, again,

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I just wanted to make a good film that, that was entertaining to people and everyone knows the,

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well, not everyone, but a lot of people know the debacle that happened on the film, you know,

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where they had to lock off the other half of the movie. So, um, by the time I came in, which was

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after they had cut, been cutting for a year and a half this new version. Um, uh, you know, I,

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I saw a film at the beginning, no ending and, um, not much story there. So, um, that's really

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was an exercise and how to make a film, um, engaging and, and, and just touching as you can with, uh,

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a story that's basically one storyline, um, I need to get away from my dad, you know, so, um,

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there was a tough, tough project, yeah. Yeah. Well, I did want to ask her out the Michael,

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the Jackson project because, of course, you'd cut the human rhapsody and, uh, I mean, this is

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actually your, I want to say this is your first, uh, film feature film cutting a job in, uh,

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in several years. Are that right? Am I right in saying that? Every since we're human rhapsody,

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yeah, because, uh, like I told you, I just been trying to get fills off the ground, which is a

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full-time job for something that may never happen, but that's what I do. Um, that's what I committed

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myself to do in my life. I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, make the money for my career

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and then so I can afford to just pursue the things I want to do. Um, so I, I originally initially

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said no to Michael. I, I mean, it must have been two years ago that Grand King brought me to the

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set to meet Fuquan and, uh, you know, wanted me to do it. And I just, I just, I didn't want to go

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down. I didn't want to be an editing jail for, for a year or so. And so, um, I did this,

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I know, I haven't told many people this. I mean, the people know this on the film. I did this

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Larry David thing where I, um, I scheduled open heart surgery to get out of it.

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Wow. I had this aneurysm in my aorta. I don't have any heart disease, but I had this aneurysm.

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And those things can pop down the road. So I was like, oh, this is a good time to, to schedule that,

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you know, um, I mean, I had to have it done anyway. So, um, so I, I come kind of joking. But,

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so I got out of it. And then, um, uh, a year and a half from, goes by and, uh, and I got a call

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from Graham. And this is, can you come look at the film? He knew, he knew it. I didn't want the job.

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So anything I said, it was the truth. I know it's like, you know, and I, and I said, look,

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it's, it's got, I, I, I, I, let me work on this for a couple of weeks. Uh, let me see what I can do

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to help out. Um, and, um, because I really felt it needed some more humor and the structure was

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strange to me. Um, and, um, and I just didn't, you didn't feel anything for Michael at all.

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So I went in there, worked a couple of weeks and grand saw what I was doing and was happy with

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the so basically I ended up taking it with the film and recutting it. His whole childhood is by

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one of my favorite parts of the film, um, with a, with Juliano. It was so talented. I mean, of course,

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Jafar's off the scales, but Juliano really is a fantastic, uh, performer and they're both,

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it's never done this before in the life, which is amazing, you know, but that, that first 25 minutes

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or so was all voiceover over over the Juliano scenes and it just, where you're over and involved

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in it at all, you're kind of watching. I mean, I make this analogy, no one seems to get, but I'll

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keep using it. It was like I was watching people swim in the pool, but not in the pool myself

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swimming around. You know, so I wanted to be, you know, you want to be in those scenes and

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experience them in real time, even though I kept that a clip. So my mission was to sort of

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resurrect all those scenes with in his childhood and tell them, you know, without having some sort

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of voiceover over them. And, um, and that was a, and I said, I'll do it the same amount of time.

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I'll tell the store without voiceover 25 minutes, you know, uh, but the first, that first act. So,

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that was one of the first things I did. And, um, anyway, this went from there and, and just doing,

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doing how I saw the film to try to, you know, it really was an exercise and how to take a really

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simple story and try to keep it engaging for the audience, you know, and it, having been your

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first editing job in several years, because as you were saying, you, you want to try to get films

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off the ground as a director. I mean, what was it like coming back into the editing room after

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several years on such a big project? You know, I think I'm getting like, forget how the

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avid works, you know, you know, but it's like riding a bike. It comes right back to you, you know,

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and, um, uh, and, uh, I'm like a dog with a bow and once you throw me in there, I'm just, I just

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never leave my chair, you know, I eat for 10 minutes and come back and it's really not good for you,

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but that's what I do, um, because I just want to be in the zone, you know, and the thing it takes

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out of me out of the zone, especially when I'm writing music is technical problems, because I'm

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just not a technical person, you know, and that just sort of knocks you out and makes you cry,

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and it's like, you know, you feel helpless because the computers are controlled my life, and I have

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no understanding how they work, you know, it's like I lift the hood up my car, no idea how it works.

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So I just, I'm intimidated by it and I say my computers, I really don't know how they work,

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it's just magic, you know, so, um, and with at least with the avid, it's very strong, it's very,

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very, um, which I could solid, it doesn't really crash much or anything and, and you have assistance

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there, like, you know, how do you do this effect, whatever, you know, it's, it's, it's like

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anything, if you think it, you can do it, you know, especially now with, uh, with digital technology

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and AI and visual effects and it's just money, and so if I imagine something, I could probably do

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it if we have the money at the time, you know, you don't want to be a crop, a, a crux because you

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want to, you should solve things editorally without just saying, oh, this is going to shoot something,

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but, um, or, or, or, or, or do some big visual effects or something, but, but it's nice to be able to

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have, um, those resources so that you can imagine something to make it happen, you know, and I did,

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I did suggest a few things that we, they went and shot to sort of help, um, this, this alternate

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version, you know, and they had shot a bunch of stuff before I came on after they had to, uh,

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lop off the second half of the film, yeah.

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Because that's something that people don't always talk about with editors, is that so much of

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what the editors suggest in terms of, oh, we might need this piece or this scene, it was really

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instrumental to the film. I mean, with your example of your work on Beheaming Rhapsody,

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the scene in, with Freddie Mercury at the bus stop, quiet in the first act, that was your

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suggestion, I want to say, right? So with this one, it was a similar, was it a similar kind of

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situation? Right. Yeah. Well, beholding Rhapsody, there was a whole sequence we did, which was

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this amazing, I've talked about this before. So if people have heard it already, whatever, but

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it was this amazing dream sequence and, um, and, uh, in the cool visuals, it was an allegory to,

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to, um, there was this big pit and, I know, I can't really describe it, but it was done to, um,

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that song, um, I would live forever, that's the name of the song, um, and it was magnificent.

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And I sold this thing to Brian Maine, everyone, and it was like, yeah, you know, and so we do the,

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the, the pre-visual, Jason pre-visualization of it, we shoot the elements for Freddie Mercury with,

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with Rami and so forth, and we're just jazzed about it, you know, and, um, there was a segment of it,

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where it's all these, um, people lined up around this pit and they all have these guns on their

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hand. That sounds crazy, but it was really beautiful. And they all screwed their guns and these bullets

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are going past Freddie Mercury, but then one hits. And the allegory was that, you know, out of all

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the sexual partners he had, one was bound to, you know, infect him, but it wasn't really done

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literally, was it, it was, it was allegory. And it was really, like I said, it was really beautiful

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into the music, it was epic, we could really full throttle the music, and we showed it to, uh,

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test audience. And they were angry, because they were like, you're slut-shaming Freddie Mercury,

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you know, and it's like, we did not expect that response at all, um, you know, and so we,

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we, now I'm left with like this song, I got it for this film, you know, and, um, because I,

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it needs to be, they don't need it to be some sort of a decision-making for him before going to

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the doctor to check himself out, because he knew something was wrong, probably knew he had AIDS,

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but was in denial. And so there had to be a moment for him to make this decision, and that dream

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was that decision. So then I had to, then I thought, what do I do? So I, so I storyboarded all of these

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things he goes and do, you know, he's, he's having, um, uh, breakfast, and this cat's on the table,

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you know, he's in the mirror, you know, like just, just, you know, the, the typical, a walk-in-long

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the beach kind of thing, except without doing the little walk-in-long the beach, you know,

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so I, I wrote all those things, and then was there on the set with Dexter, um,

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flexure, who came on the last few weeks of filming, and shot those things, yeah. So there are things

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that, you know, um, sometimes out of complete necessity you have to do, and sometimes just out of

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like, you know, band-aids that you want to come up with and help the story, you know, I, I had suggested

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Michael watching TV with his mother a lot when I came on, so we, we shot some of that stuff, um,

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to sort of create some sort of, uh, bond with them, um, and, and also show that he's learning through

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watching, uh, Fred Stere, or, you know, stuff, um, on TV, you know, not Fred Stere, the singing

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and the rain guy, um, Jean Kelly. Jean Kelly, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hi. Yeah. And,

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and because I'm talking about being Rhapsody in relation to Michael, because, uh, because you

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mentioned Brian May there, I mean, I know that the Brian May and Roger Taylor had a, there was

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something of a, of a presence of them on the, in the post of, um, of Bowen Rhapsody. Like, I know,

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Brian May was particularly keen on playing the 20th Century Fox fanfare on his, on his, you know,

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guitar. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was quite a story. Um, you know, they were super, I mean, they,

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they really had a lot of trust in post. They came in once in a while to look at some concert scenes

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and, um, and we're very respectful and I, you know, I tell this like, you know, you have to make cuts

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in these scenes. You have to, you can't play the whole songs, of course, that the narrative would

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just fail. And so, um, the place that to cut for me were when Brian May was noodling on his

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guitar. That's, that's a great place I can cut because he not really cutting the structure of the

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song. And so he come in and go, can you just put a little bit of that more of that back, you know,

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so, so, but the, but he understood why I had to do that. So they were, they were really respectful

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of that. But yeah, funny situation. So Brian, making up with a great idea for the, for the, um,

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for the logo, uh, in front of the film, the Fox, 20th Century Fox thing. And he had never really

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been on a film dub stage before. And he was so, because he's very, he's a very, uh, you know,

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technical guy, you know, and he's intrigued by technology and so forth. And he was so intrigued

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by the surround sound system, you know, and, um, and, and at most all that kind of stuff.

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And so we, we mixed that music you did and then he started, he went home and started thinking

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about surrounds. So then he comes back and we have very little time to, to, to finish the sound of

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this film. And he comes back and says, well, what if we like, you know, have it, you know,

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over here and they shoot across the room there and do that. And so we ended up spending an entire

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day of a two week mix on the logo music. But panning now, let's do it. This way is like, I remember

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watching Paul Massey are, um, our sound mix are just like, oh my god, what are we going to do

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because we have to move on, you know, but, but in the end, it sounds fantastic. And, um, and,

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but it was a funny story, you know, yeah, and it ended up on the album on the soundtrack album

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for the film. So, yeah, I mean, it's stuck. It definitely stuck. And, I mean, and linking that

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then to Michael, I mean, because as I say, Brian and Roger work, something of a presence. I mean,

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were the jack was a jackson estate to tell the presence in the post on, uh, on Michael.

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Well, not not physically. No, I mean, I know the gram, um, that was one of his major, uh, jobs as

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to is to be, you know, deal with them from the very beginning. I mean, he went to them, I believe,

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and got this, this, this being with project off the ground, you know, that he had a vision for.

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I remember him telling me about this years ago, you know, you know, you know, and it's really funny

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how it's, it's, it means our time, you hear someone say something, I have an idea for something,

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maybe we'll do this, you know, maybe I'll, I'll, I'll do this and buy a pick on Michael Jackson.

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And then like, you know, you know, a couple of years later, he sends me like, what do you think

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of this guy? You know, he shows me, you know, Jafar on my, on the iPhone, I'm like, oh yeah,

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that's, that's promising, you know, and suddenly, it's suddenly, it's a movie, you know, it's,

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it's, it's pretty amazing. It's quite, I mean, Kudos to him. He's just like a force of nature

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to get this thing off the ground and have it completed, you know, but he was the man who was sort of,

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I guess, dealing with the machinations behind the scenes of like, yeah, the, what you did,

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you stay, you said everything. You know, it's, uh, well, you know, I won't go into it, but there's,

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you know, you had to make a lot, you got to make a lot of people happy, um, uh, when you're making

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a film about, uh, a family member and, and, and it's, it's quite a, uh, a, it's quite a thing to

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navigate for, for, for Brown, you know, it's, uh, but I didn't have to do that. I just was told,

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okay, we can't do this or that because of someone thinks this and so that became, um,

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it just yet another, uh, difficulty in making the film, you know, for sure. But now that, I mean,

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now the movie's out, how does it feel now to finally have this thing out in the world?

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Well, I mean, the big relief was just when we finished it. So it's just the same way. And I'm,

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I'm glad though it's doing well, you know, um, you know, it's, uh, you know, I know that, uh,

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obviously got slammed for, uh, for, uh, you know, it's the, the simplicity of the story, but I think,

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uh, again, it's experienced and it's a celebration of, of Michael and his talent. And I think that's,

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I think that's the most people are taking away from it and why they're, why they're, um,

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having a good time with England back and seeing it again, which is always the good side, you know,

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it's interesting though. So, I mean, going more broadly, uh, on your approach to what you do as

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a, as an editor, I guess nowadays you're more of a full-time editor, but over the course of your

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career being an editor in composer. As I said, at the start, we've had sort of composers on the

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show and editors separately. And something I've asked them is what makes a good editor or what makes

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a good composer? And they always have a, like a, a very sort of like in-depth answer, a multi,

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which is multifaceted about what makes a good composer. To me, it's one of those. It's a simple answer.

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Well, my, my answer is simple, it sounds very cliche, but it's basically, um, you just have to be a

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good storyteller as a composer. If you're, if you're a good storyteller, um, that's, that's, that's,

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that's almost more important than any musicals, uh, music theory or classes you took or whatever,

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you know, and it's the same obviously with a, with the editor or your challenge story, you know,

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so the better storytelling you are. And surprisingly, you know, there are some editors who,

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who are good at, um, uh, making cool little cuts, but they're not, you know, it's, the, the,

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the main talent of editing is what people think about, and that is them, is stepping back.

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And the macro view of the movie has a feeling, is it, what's, how's the ebb and flow going?

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Is it dragging here or whatever? Am I, am I, do I care here? And so that's, that's the biggest

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job of a good editor, because that's telling the story. You know, you can die, you can then, then

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you can focus in, you can through micros go in and look at certain scenes and how snazzy they were

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a cool, but, but, uh, and that's very important as well and how you accomplish pulling off a scene,

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but collectively, I think, um, it has to work. And it's the same with a composer, you know,

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what are you doing? You're telling a story, a score, you should be hearing a story being

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untold, which is harder today because scores are not as lyrical or, or melodic as they used to be,

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to sort of revisit motifs and so forth. I'm here, here, this composer trying to tell some sort

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of story, you know, um, you know, anyway, anyways, you got to be a good storyteller, you know,

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because a lot of composers who know music theory in and out and more than I do, you know, um,

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you know, I know some composers who struggle and they get a scene about how to, uh,

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bring out the subtext and understand what they're supposed to be doing, you know, and they start

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listening to other things, to see what they, what they could maybe be inspired by, and I go just,

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just watch the scene with nothing and, and ask yourself, what does the scene about? You know,

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what, what is it lacking? You know, what, what does it need? You know, so, um, you know, it's like the,

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the force thing, unlearn, what does Obi-Wan Kenobi say? Unlearn what you have learned. You know,

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if you get all that, all those classes you took just sort of like sit down and, and, and, and,

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take it in and then try to, you know, and try to, um, communicate the story to people, you know.

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Yeah, I mean, but as, as I say there, you're someone who has done both of those jobs at the same time

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on, on huge movies, and I mean, you're one of the very few people in the history of films who can

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say that. I mean, I know there are people, there are filmmakers who have done editing, and then,

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you know, I mean, I guess you could say John Carpenter as always, you know, did music on his films,

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and then would have been in the editing room. Right, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you're one of the

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few struggles. He's straddled both, which is, I just wanted to write scores, you know, and when

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we did the usual suspects, uh, well, I before put the usual suspects together, I told Brian,

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because we did a previous movie that won Sundance, and I'd scored it also, and no one would have

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done that before, uh, with the editing and scoring. And so I said, look, I just want to write film

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scores. And he said, you're never going to write a film score for me unless you're the editor.

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And so that's how the black male began. And so, uh, I didn't have a choice. You know, I mean,

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in one way, you know, I, I knew the film weren't really anyone as the composer, you know, um, because

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I was constructing it in many times, I had to sort of make myself step back from that and get it,

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you know, and get a fresh light on it because I was so in it, you know, um, but yeah, that's how that

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happens. And um, it's for better force, you know. Yeah. And I guess like, how do you like, just like

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say, the amount of work that that goes into being an editor or a composer, like, how do you

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personally, what strategies did you develop over the years for just not a, like, I guess,

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getting in top of you? Tell your friends, you'll see that in a year or a year and a half, and I'm

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sort of not exaggerating. Um, you know, don't go to dinner, don't go to movies, don't, I mean,

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basically, it's, it's, it's your life. I mean, it's like, there's no way I could have done that.

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Um, unless it just became my entire world. And so, um, uh, you know, and this is before the days

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of ghost writers and, you know, now composers have like a team of 10 or 15 and 50 people, you know,

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and they're sort of like the point man. Um, and I'm just come from another generation,

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where that was like unthinkable to me, you know, um, you know, in the last, you know,

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last few years of my, uh, composing actually, you know, I, I got some help. I'm a couple of

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cues here and there and I would direct, you know, um, a couple pieces of music with some people

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I know, and it's like, um, um, you know, I feel sorry for them as they rewrite a queue like

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fucking 10 times, you know, for me, but, um, but it did save my ass in, uh, in some, in a couple

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films that was on like Jack, a giant slayer and that thing was went on forever and it was just a,

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um, I was just like so despondent because I'd been there for so long and I was exhausted and I had

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to write this enormous score. And so there were a couple scenes where I, I, um, I found these guys

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and they helped me out and I felt so indebted to them. And, um, uh, I, I felt sorry for them also

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is I should rewrite stuff for so many times, but, um, but that's basically that's the model now.

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You basically have a team of people and, and, and this is why I think this coming to get onto one

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of my soap box issues, but the, the tragedy of that is that no matter how much of a good

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teacher embossed you are of a, say, a composing company like that, which they are now,

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you're never gonna hear, I don't, I don't, it's like when you hear a John Berry score, you know,

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it's John Berry. When you hear a Jerry Golds the score, you know, that's Jerry Golds, but no matter how

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prolific he was and different styles he did, you knew it was him because the, if his sensibilities,

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you knew that John Williams score when you heard it. Uh, you know, an area, any more Coney's score

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when you hear it. Today, I defy anyone to say, oh, that's a so and so score because they have

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a team of people and, and almost they have to win away because of how fast moving things are

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and how fast people want changes and so forth, but it's really, it's really a shame, you know.

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Yeah, I'd agree. I mean, I've, I've been talking to the composers on this podcast, um, about this kind of,

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these kinds of issues and these kinds of problems that I guess have come up in the industry.

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And I know what you mean, it's harder. I feel like one of the things, as you said earlier,

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like melodies become less and less valued so that catchy melodies and memorable melodies are just

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not really stock as less stock and trade these days. I think that's a, I think there's this

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misconception that, well, if we have melodic scores, it's gonna, it's gonna be dated. It's gonna sound

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old. That's the, you know, and that's not true. It's how you do that. You know, um, you can have

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scored motifs and melodies as long as you, you do it in a way that's, that's tasteful for today.

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It doesn't feel dated, you know. Um, and also the nature of films are different. You know,

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you know, we don't have, uh, out of Africa where we're going to show a landscape for three minutes

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and let the composer do a thing. You know, we don't have, well, people are probably thankful for

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this, but for me as a big Star Trek fan, you don't have a four-minute sequence flying around the

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enterprise and Starship promotion picture, you know, uh, worshiping in this, this ship, um,

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you know, I defy a lot of film composers today of how to, how to support that scene of four minutes

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of music and you have to tell a musical story and, um, uh, you can always like the Star Trek

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Fused. I'll just go on forever. So I'll try to hold myself back. But I always use the enterprise

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incident from Star Trek Moshe picture as, and I need to bring it to film scoring classes and so

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forth because, um, it demands from the composer a skill set of telling a story for four minutes

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and now composers are so brought up on short motifs and ostinatos going da, da, da, da, da, da, da,

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da, da, da, da, da, da. Like, how do you, how are you gonna do that for four minutes

353
00:29:31.040 --> 00:29:36.720
when you, when you introduce the enterprise? You know, and so Gohlsp an had to tell a story that

354
00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:41.520
had beginning, middle, and end, and very revisited motifs, and it felt like it was going somewhere

355
00:29:41.520 --> 00:29:42.520
the whole time.

356
00:29:42.520 --> 00:29:47.040
That's a highly difficult thing to do, even he failed the first pass on that scene.

357
00:29:47.040 --> 00:29:52.880
He scored that entire sequence, and Robert Wise, you know, watched it, and he goes, and

358
00:29:52.880 --> 00:29:57.200
literally this is what he said, to Joltz Goldsmith, he says, where's the fucking theme?

359
00:29:57.200 --> 00:30:01.680
Because there was no theme that Goldsmith had to sort of revisit and tell this story,

360
00:30:01.680 --> 00:30:06.880
and Goldsmith tells the story himself, and how he failed, because without pre-writing

361
00:30:06.880 --> 00:30:12.000
a really full-fledged theme, he couldn't go back to the well, and sort of like tell the

362
00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:13.000
story.

363
00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:17.200
He was just, he was noodling the whole time, you know, like, you know, just trying to

364
00:30:17.200 --> 00:30:21.960
fill space, you know, and it's really beautiful what he did, but it's varied beandering.

365
00:30:21.960 --> 00:30:28.640
So that's the importance of writing a theme, writing the themes out first, you know, even

366
00:30:28.640 --> 00:30:33.080
if you don't ever use the full theme in the movie, it's like, I couldn't write a score

367
00:30:33.080 --> 00:30:37.600
unless I had written all my themes out, the ones I felt are going to be important, and

368
00:30:37.600 --> 00:30:40.760
then draw from them to write the score, otherwise I'd be completely lost.

369
00:30:40.760 --> 00:30:46.080
And it's a discipline, because it's like, this is one of the other lectures I give editors

370
00:30:46.080 --> 00:30:53.240
and composers, it's like, you know, the agony pays off for an editor who is pressured to

371
00:30:53.240 --> 00:30:56.520
cut the scene now, because they need to know whether they could cut, they could tear down

372
00:30:56.520 --> 00:30:58.800
the set or whatever.

373
00:30:58.800 --> 00:31:02.200
The impetus would be to start cutting them out without watching the footage or watching

374
00:31:02.200 --> 00:31:05.440
most of it, just put something together.

375
00:31:05.440 --> 00:31:10.080
And I give this whole speech, maybe I won't bore you with now, about why that's a mistake.

376
00:31:10.080 --> 00:31:15.000
And so I sit there and I watch every frame, and I watch the evolution on the set of what

377
00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.640
they did throughout that whole day to understand what happened, what may have been overthinking,

378
00:31:19.640 --> 00:31:23.560
and maybe the original stuff was better, maybe that I blinked at Twitch, that guy did

379
00:31:23.640 --> 00:31:27.480
the first take of the first day, or the first hours of that day were better than the last

380
00:31:27.480 --> 00:31:28.480
thing I did.

381
00:31:28.480 --> 00:31:37.480
Anyway, so I marked every lightning in the bottle moment of that day of shooting, and

382
00:31:37.480 --> 00:31:42.320
then I cut the scene, and you think like, wow, you must really be behind at that point,

383
00:31:42.320 --> 00:31:48.520
but no, I'm not, because while you're watching all that footage, your brain is lately thinking

384
00:31:48.520 --> 00:31:50.520
of what that scene should be.

385
00:31:50.520 --> 00:31:53.560
You know, rather than just take footage and start slapping these up with no vision of

386
00:31:53.560 --> 00:31:57.680
what that scene should be or not, just kind of winging it, by the time you're done watching

387
00:31:57.680 --> 00:32:01.160
hours and hours and hours of footage, that scene is in your head.

388
00:32:01.160 --> 00:32:04.840
And it had to be back of the day when I was cutting in film, because I couldn't just throw

389
00:32:04.840 --> 00:32:05.840
different versions up.

390
00:32:05.840 --> 00:32:10.080
You had to pre-think what this scene is going to be, so so laborious just to cut this

391
00:32:10.080 --> 00:32:11.600
scene together.

392
00:32:11.600 --> 00:32:16.040
And so then when I cut my scene, I cut it together like that, super fast.

393
00:32:16.040 --> 00:32:21.920
And so I make up the time, or even less time, people say you cut so fast, I like really,

394
00:32:21.920 --> 00:32:25.640
because I sit there for hours watching this fucking footage, you know, but it does maybe

395
00:32:25.640 --> 00:32:29.120
because you have an immediate vision and it is very quickly.

396
00:32:29.120 --> 00:32:32.760
It's quick, and it's very the same thing with music.

397
00:32:32.760 --> 00:32:36.240
If you spend that agony, you want to start scoring the movie, right?

398
00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:39.440
But no, spend a couple of days and write those themes out.

399
00:32:39.440 --> 00:32:44.040
And then when you start scoring the film, you'll score like that, because it'll make

400
00:32:44.040 --> 00:32:45.040
sense to you.

401
00:32:45.040 --> 00:32:50.400
And so it's worth that discipline, that agonizing discipline, that I give my short version

402
00:32:50.400 --> 00:32:54.400
of my big, long, so-box for that image.

403
00:32:54.400 --> 00:32:55.920
No, I'm here for it.

404
00:32:55.920 --> 00:32:56.920
I'm here for it, mate.

405
00:32:56.920 --> 00:32:57.920
It's great.

406
00:32:57.920 --> 00:33:02.560
I mean, there's so much in your sort of music and in your editing to explore.

407
00:33:02.560 --> 00:33:05.560
But I mean, something that you mentioned before was your work on usual suspects, which

408
00:33:05.560 --> 00:33:09.920
I guess in many ways was the breakthrough you could argue for, I guess you as a composer

409
00:33:09.920 --> 00:33:10.920
and editor.

410
00:33:10.920 --> 00:33:13.840
I mean, it was kind of a launching pad for so many people's work.

411
00:33:13.840 --> 00:33:17.600
I mean, and that film is a film that has such a sort of willfully playful kind of

412
00:33:17.600 --> 00:33:19.680
labyrinthine structure.

413
00:33:19.680 --> 00:33:23.880
And as the editor putting that together, and also as the composer, underscoring that,

414
00:33:23.880 --> 00:33:27.440
what was that like putting that sort of very labyrinthine structure together on screen?

415
00:33:27.440 --> 00:33:31.600
Well, like I say before, it's like, you know, you can't, you couldn't easily change things

416
00:33:31.600 --> 00:33:32.920
back then when you're cutting on film.

417
00:33:32.920 --> 00:33:36.680
I mean, it's like, you're splicing things together with tape and everything, and you're

418
00:33:36.680 --> 00:33:38.120
having these piece of film in there.

419
00:33:38.120 --> 00:33:40.840
They're all on piles, they're all with the floor, you know?

420
00:33:40.840 --> 00:33:42.840
And so you just can't say, oh, well, just do this version.

421
00:33:42.840 --> 00:33:43.840
You don't do that version.

422
00:33:43.840 --> 00:33:44.840
You can't do that.

423
00:33:44.840 --> 00:33:48.440
So you really had, so that was back to my speech, you know, about watching all the footage

424
00:33:48.440 --> 00:33:51.600
and have something ruminating your head.

425
00:33:51.600 --> 00:33:56.640
And, and, and I don't know really, I look back at how I, I did restructuring so forth

426
00:33:56.640 --> 00:34:02.160
because it's such a nightmare on film, but I think just going to bed, watching all that

427
00:34:02.160 --> 00:34:06.200
footage and thinking about it, and knowing what the tent is with the script or what the

428
00:34:06.200 --> 00:34:12.800
script was trying to do, I would come up with an order of scenes and so forth, you know,

429
00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:20.040
and then, you know, but the score, the score, yeah, I mean, I was terrified of that one.

430
00:34:20.040 --> 00:34:25.080
I told you I was terrified on, on X-Men 2 because the size and sheer scope of it.

431
00:34:25.080 --> 00:34:28.480
On, on suspects, I was terrified because I had never done it before.

432
00:34:28.480 --> 00:34:33.640
You know, I was writing synthesized, you know, on rudimentary equipment, you know, a

433
00:34:33.640 --> 00:34:35.160
stuff as a hobby, you know?

434
00:34:35.160 --> 00:34:42.760
And so, you know, I was terrified that when I got to the stage, it wouldn't sound like

435
00:34:42.760 --> 00:34:46.240
what I wrote on my, on my synthesized, you know, renderings, you know, it's like this

436
00:34:46.240 --> 00:34:47.240
is going to sound completely different.

437
00:34:47.240 --> 00:34:52.720
And so, the amazing thing was, was putting the first cue up on the stage and it's like,

438
00:34:52.720 --> 00:34:56.440
oh my god, it sounds like what I wrote, you know, except way better, you know, it was,

439
00:34:56.440 --> 00:35:01.160
it was the most amazing thing, you know, and I did something crazy back then too.

440
00:35:01.160 --> 00:35:04.640
It's like, and again, it's like if you, it's just, it's just, you can break the rules

441
00:35:04.640 --> 00:35:08.680
with things, you know, like I'm not really musically trained, I just, I just, I played clarinet

442
00:35:08.680 --> 00:35:13.240
for years, you know, but I, I self-taught myself and, you know, in film score watching and

443
00:35:13.240 --> 00:35:15.640
knowing how to tell stories, blah, blah, blah.

444
00:35:15.640 --> 00:35:20.120
And with usual suspects, I, we couldn't afford to have picture there while we were scoring

445
00:35:20.120 --> 00:35:21.120
the movie.

446
00:35:21.120 --> 00:35:23.920
It was just too much of a technical problem, this little teen studio, we were recording

447
00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:25.440
the scoring.

448
00:35:25.440 --> 00:35:33.240
And I said, well, logically, if I'm composing to a click and I'm in my studio, it's

449
00:35:33.240 --> 00:35:37.400
matching picture, then we're, if we're blind on stage, it should be ratching.

450
00:35:37.400 --> 00:35:39.040
And well, you can't do that.

451
00:35:39.040 --> 00:35:41.760
You can't, I go, but, but there's no reason why it wouldn't be matched, you know.

452
00:35:41.760 --> 00:35:47.600
So we, we scored it blind, you know, and so then when we put them, then we, then we

453
00:35:47.600 --> 00:35:51.560
sink the movie up to it when we were mixing the score and sure enough, everything was

454
00:35:51.560 --> 00:35:52.920
right on, you know.

455
00:35:52.920 --> 00:35:58.040
And so, you know, it's just, it's just, there's many ways of skinning the cat, you know,

456
00:35:58.040 --> 00:36:02.680
as long as you, you know, just, I mean, everyone doubts themselves, but just, that I was

457
00:36:02.680 --> 00:36:06.680
even, you know, when people tell me you can't do that, I was, I was, they were scaring

458
00:36:06.760 --> 00:36:11.280
me, but, but I kept thinking, well, there's no way this wouldn't work, you know, so that's

459
00:36:11.280 --> 00:36:12.280
what we did.

460
00:36:12.280 --> 00:36:14.520
We also, we're such a small studio.

461
00:36:14.520 --> 00:36:17.600
We couldn't fit the whole orchestra on there at the, at one time.

462
00:36:17.600 --> 00:36:23.640
So we did this long scoring sessions where, I mean, many more days because we'd record

463
00:36:23.640 --> 00:36:27.880
the strings for the whole score for a couple days, then we'd record the brass for a couple

464
00:36:27.880 --> 00:36:30.280
days, we'd record the percussion.

465
00:36:30.280 --> 00:36:34.040
And, you know, but the great thing was we ended up having all this amazing separation.

466
00:36:34.040 --> 00:36:37.720
So, the score sounds pretty, pretty good, you know.

467
00:36:37.720 --> 00:36:38.720
Yeah, I'll say.

468
00:36:38.720 --> 00:36:42.720
And am I right in thinking about film you edited it was, it was edited in your living room,

469
00:36:42.720 --> 00:36:43.720
right?

470
00:36:43.720 --> 00:36:44.720
In my living room, yeah, yeah.

471
00:36:44.720 --> 00:36:45.720
Yeah.

472
00:36:45.720 --> 00:36:49.840
And, you know, I, the romantic notion of cutting on film back, even though I'd never

473
00:36:49.840 --> 00:36:57.520
do it, you know, now, was that when you presented the film to your first audience or this

474
00:36:57.520 --> 00:37:02.560
executives or whatever, you knew it had a place to go, you knew it was going someplace,

475
00:37:02.560 --> 00:37:05.920
but this, by definition, the way it looked, it was a work in progress.

476
00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:09.920
You know, you see the splice marks, you see the grease pencil marks, over where a fade

477
00:37:09.920 --> 00:37:14.200
or a dissolve is going to be, you see that blood streaking across the film because I cut

478
00:37:14.200 --> 00:37:18.280
my finger, you see cat hair, I mean, they'd be cat hair in the splices, they'd be cat,

479
00:37:18.280 --> 00:37:22.760
you know, it's like in, in the music and the sound was all mineral, there was no stereo

480
00:37:22.760 --> 00:37:27.480
because it was just butt cut with these mag tracks, you know, magnetic, you know, film with

481
00:37:27.480 --> 00:37:28.480
spuckets in it.

482
00:37:28.600 --> 00:37:34.960
I mean, I'm, we're magnetic tape with spucket holes in it, you know, and so it was sort

483
00:37:34.960 --> 00:37:40.840
of cool and like, imagine how it's going to look with this when the negative is cut.

484
00:37:40.840 --> 00:37:44.080
Oh, it's, it looks so nice, you know, it's like, you know, and so there was always this

485
00:37:44.080 --> 00:37:49.280
like step by step improvement constantly, you know, now when you put a test screening

486
00:37:49.280 --> 00:37:53.760
up or your first cut, it looks so pristine and perfect, you put your dissolves in, you

487
00:37:53.760 --> 00:37:58.920
make your stereo in 5-1, you can make your sound in 5-1, and it's almost like no imagination

488
00:37:58.920 --> 00:38:03.320
of where it could go, you know, it's like, well, that's it, you know, this is it, you

489
00:38:03.320 --> 00:38:09.280
know, and it's like, it's like, it's like that association when you put a bad cue in

490
00:38:09.280 --> 00:38:12.800
for the, as the first thing that people hear on the scene, well, that's, that must be

491
00:38:12.800 --> 00:38:17.120
the music that's right then, you know, because, because immediately, the association is

492
00:38:17.120 --> 00:38:20.040
so strong, you can't imagine something better being on that.

493
00:38:20.040 --> 00:38:24.480
This is why a lot of bad scores get out there because, you know, an editor and desperation

494
00:38:24.480 --> 00:38:28.080
will just throw something on, everyone will think, oh, that's the score, composer comes

495
00:38:28.080 --> 00:38:33.760
on, he's told to rip that off, and then you have some score that's really, really the

496
00:38:33.760 --> 00:38:39.600
wrong thing for the film or not the best thing, you know, so that's, that's what happens.

497
00:38:39.600 --> 00:38:43.160
Yeah, I mean, that's a systemic problem of 10 music, isn't it, where like people,

498
00:38:43.160 --> 00:38:47.520
all editors will just throw temp to the, to the picture just so easily now, and then like

499
00:38:47.520 --> 00:38:53.000
the composer has to, is basically sort of cajold and to have it forced to compose music

500
00:38:53.000 --> 00:38:57.040
that sounds like the temp score and, and it gets gone down to, if you're a composer

501
00:38:57.040 --> 00:39:02.080
who was really a storyteller and has some taste, you'll tell them, hey, well, if you have

502
00:39:02.080 --> 00:39:04.920
the clout to, if you're a new composer, you go, okay, I'll just do what you say, you

503
00:39:04.920 --> 00:39:07.880
know, you know, you're fired, right? But, but like, if you got, if you're a composer

504
00:39:07.880 --> 00:39:13.120
with like some, a clout and, and respect, it's like you come in and say, hey guys, you

505
00:39:13.120 --> 00:39:18.760
know, I really think this score is masking a storyline that you don't even know is there,

506
00:39:18.760 --> 00:39:23.320
you know, I've had that happen, I had them strip the, the score out because it's like,

507
00:39:23.320 --> 00:39:27.440
um, unlike you're, you're covering the movie up with, anyway, that's all going to that

508
00:39:27.440 --> 00:39:32.480
old detail, but, but yeah, it's, um, so it goes back to, hey, if you're a composer who,

509
00:39:32.480 --> 00:39:36.800
who really wants to bring the most out of this film and tell the story, you'll tell them

510
00:39:36.800 --> 00:39:41.360
that, um, this isn't right, you know, I don't know, but as long as you tell the reasons,

511
00:39:41.360 --> 00:39:45.200
like, oh, this music sucks, you know, I'd write something better, they'll think it's

512
00:39:45.200 --> 00:39:49.040
your ego, blah, blah, blah. If you, if you'd long as you let them know, there's nothing

513
00:39:49.040 --> 00:39:53.560
do with that. It has to do with, with the film itself and how you can make it better, you

514
00:39:53.560 --> 00:39:54.560
know?

515
00:39:54.560 --> 00:39:58.080
Absolutely. Yeah. And you're an editor who is an composer, but you're in it, I guess

516
00:39:58.080 --> 00:40:01.960
specifically zeroing in on the editing, like, you're an editor who's, who's cut so many

517
00:40:01.960 --> 00:40:06.440
fantastic scenes across the career. And with usual suspects, I mean, like, I guess one

518
00:40:06.440 --> 00:40:09.720
of the key ones is the, the classic, the lineup sequence, which has kind of gone down

519
00:40:09.720 --> 00:40:14.360
in history is, yeah, yeah. This, this fantastic sequence, which was, I mean, and they're

520
00:40:14.360 --> 00:40:18.400
even, they're legends about how it was essentially all the actors, none of them could, could

521
00:40:18.400 --> 00:40:22.680
keep it straight. And so they would be corpse and yeah, I mean, I want us to ask them, what

522
00:40:22.680 --> 00:40:25.080
do you remember the shooting and the editing of that sequence in particular?

523
00:40:25.080 --> 00:40:29.080
Yeah, of course. I mean, you know, I just wanted to be, have a reel in it as, and because

524
00:40:29.080 --> 00:40:33.600
I watched all the footage, I watched all the bloopers and outtakes. And then when I was

525
00:40:33.600 --> 00:40:37.360
finally done with them, like, well, that's the scene, that, the scene should be they

526
00:40:37.360 --> 00:40:42.480
can't keep a face, a straight face, you know? So I cut the thing together. And I remember

527
00:40:42.480 --> 00:40:46.480
Brian coming in and he was like, floored by it. He was like, oh, fuck yeah, you know,

528
00:40:46.480 --> 00:40:50.680
because he, he didn't, I love, I would love just going off the track and doing something

529
00:40:50.680 --> 00:40:57.280
and have the director come in and be completely surprised by what I do, you know? And he immediately

530
00:40:57.280 --> 00:41:03.720
saw the, you know, that, that was the way to go. And, yeah, yeah, because it was originally

531
00:41:03.720 --> 00:41:07.640
shot, the shot was a straight scene, right? It was shot as just like a serious, but then

532
00:41:07.640 --> 00:41:11.200
like they just couldn't keep it together. Yeah, it was, it was supposed to be a shorter

533
00:41:11.200 --> 00:41:15.440
scene, just serious. It's just go through it, you know, basically get a little bit, get

534
00:41:15.440 --> 00:41:19.680
a, get a, a little spice of each of these guys and move on. And so I, I tried to, like,

535
00:41:19.680 --> 00:41:24.040
a little, a little more of a meal at it. Yeah. And was it, was it, that was all challenging

536
00:41:24.040 --> 00:41:27.080
because like, with terms of what you just had to work with technically, like, was it, was

537
00:41:27.080 --> 00:41:31.360
it challenging to put that together? It's always a talent because you had to create, it's

538
00:41:31.360 --> 00:41:35.040
like it, it's like you're creating something that didn't exist, of course, and you have

539
00:41:35.040 --> 00:41:38.560
to create a logic to it. So it doesn't seem random. You have to feel like there's an

540
00:41:38.560 --> 00:41:42.480
escalation and there's a design, there's a design to something that wasn't designed, you

541
00:41:42.480 --> 00:41:48.640
know? I did that in a much smaller way in the Mike Meyer scene in Michael because it was,

542
00:41:48.640 --> 00:41:55.160
he, you know, it was a very straight scene. It was for sort of language. And so I, you

543
00:41:55.160 --> 00:41:58.840
know, it's what you can do as an editor too, as you, as I looked at the script and a lot

544
00:41:58.840 --> 00:42:03.040
of the dialogue was at an order. And I want to really save, well, this is not the

545
00:42:03.040 --> 00:42:07.120
communique part. I'll talk about the drum mat, dramatic arc for a second. When Michael says,

546
00:42:07.120 --> 00:42:10.920
look, I don't want to be in the back of the bus as a black artist, you know, that came

547
00:42:10.920 --> 00:42:15.640
so much earlier in the scene. And it didn't really inspire the Mike Meyer's character to

548
00:42:15.640 --> 00:42:22.760
go, oh, shit, I'm going to call this guy, you know, at CBS or that's at, at MTV. And

549
00:42:22.840 --> 00:42:29.560
so a lot of the dialogue I reordered and repurposed, you know, I wouldn't like to go in the

550
00:42:29.560 --> 00:42:34.280
whole whole whole less of them, just this one scene. But then Mike Meyer has did all these

551
00:42:34.280 --> 00:42:39.200
random things off camera, you know, like, you know, he was telling the crew, he's sorry,

552
00:42:39.200 --> 00:42:44.560
sorry, he drank that coke because it made him burp, you know? And, and then in a moment

553
00:42:44.560 --> 00:42:48.480
after the whole scene was finished, after he hang up the phone with the MTV guy and

554
00:42:48.480 --> 00:42:53.560
says, you know, it looks at Michael, he went into this whole thing about, hey, there's

555
00:42:53.560 --> 00:42:57.040
a show at New York, if you want to go about these French artists and so forth. And I'm

556
00:42:57.040 --> 00:43:02.040
like, well, that should be the nervous talk by his waiting for the call from the MTV executive,

557
00:43:02.040 --> 00:43:08.240
you know? And so a restructed little thing and it uses bloopers. And so that scene was

558
00:43:08.240 --> 00:43:13.160
a joy for me to put together because it's so like line up scene in usual suspects. It's

559
00:43:13.160 --> 00:43:16.840
like, you know, I showed that to Graham and he was laughed as head off because was not

560
00:43:16.840 --> 00:43:22.520
expecting the whole scene to be completely reconceived, you know, in a fun way. And that

561
00:43:22.520 --> 00:43:26.560
was my mantra too. It was like, we got to put more humor in this movie. And so that

562
00:43:26.560 --> 00:43:31.600
was one, that was one way I did it with that scene, you know, that's a power of editing.

563
00:43:31.600 --> 00:43:36.360
You know, there was no reshoots. There was just, there was just reorganizing. And I had

564
00:43:36.360 --> 00:43:42.560
a couple little off camera lines and so forth, like, like, but hole, you know, and

565
00:43:42.560 --> 00:43:46.520
there's your kind of like highlight reels as an editor, like, it is the memories that

566
00:43:46.520 --> 00:43:49.040
you think of, like, oh, yeah, that was a great day. Like getting, because as you say,

567
00:43:49.040 --> 00:43:52.440
it's all in the editing. That's all in the editing. That's all you know, it seems like

568
00:43:52.440 --> 00:44:01.920
that's in times that to me are, are why feel the most proud of versus some obviously,

569
00:44:01.920 --> 00:44:06.680
like, like, bad is like, you know, that was like my mini live aid, right, for this movie.

570
00:44:06.680 --> 00:44:11.840
And yes, that I kicked ass on that. But, but that's obvious, you know, but, but you don't

571
00:44:11.840 --> 00:44:17.440
know what I did to be like, my or seen, or there's a scene between Joe and, and, and Don

572
00:44:17.440 --> 00:44:22.920
King, you know, like that scene, I did a lot, a lot of, like, hanky, panky toilet with

573
00:44:22.920 --> 00:44:27.120
that as well. And it made a lot of fun, you know, so those are the ones I feel most, most

574
00:44:27.120 --> 00:44:30.480
rewarding. You know, it's obviously seven, no notices. And of course, you're, you're

575
00:44:30.480 --> 00:44:35.120
most proud of, you know, it's your best score is for the film, the bomb that no one heard,

576
00:44:35.120 --> 00:44:39.800
you know, well, actually was going to last you have like a personal favorite of the scores

577
00:44:39.800 --> 00:44:42.760
you've done, or indeed of the films you've edited, like, in terms of your own work.

578
00:44:42.760 --> 00:44:46.920
Um, you know, the personal favorite of the scores I did, but I have ones that I think were

579
00:44:46.920 --> 00:44:51.960
some of my best work that no one heard, you know, like, there's one called incognito, which

580
00:44:51.960 --> 00:44:56.200
ironically remained is that, you know, it was a movie with Jason Patrick and he's this art

581
00:44:56.200 --> 00:45:00.840
forger, and he forges his Rembrandt. And there was like, scenes that went on for, I kid you

582
00:45:00.840 --> 00:45:06.520
not four, five minutes with no dialogue, nothing, just all, all music. And so it's a really music,

583
00:45:06.520 --> 00:45:10.680
it was a sort of like, uh, here's, here's a, here's a canvas drive like a, like, like,

584
00:45:10.680 --> 00:45:14.840
white red is symphony. And so that was early in my career, John Badham, uh,

585
00:45:14.840 --> 00:45:20.680
directed Badham. And um, I just felt like, oh, this is it. This is it. This is going to propel me to,

586
00:45:20.680 --> 00:45:26.200
to like, you know, a list, whatever. And then the film was never released, you know, because, um,

587
00:45:26.200 --> 00:45:32.840
the whole film was predicated on Jason Patrick's, um, supposed popularity after they did speed two.

588
00:45:33.640 --> 00:45:38.200
And it speed two bombed. And so then they couldn't really build off of that. And they, and they

589
00:45:38.200 --> 00:45:43.720
just put it in the can. Um, you know, and then right after that, one of my, uh, uh, uh, uh,

590
00:45:43.720 --> 00:45:49.800
uh, uh, score I love. It was snow white with Sigourney Weaver. And Disney saw the film. They were

591
00:45:49.800 --> 00:45:55.960
horrified by because they don't own snow white, right? But it was so dark, they wanted to go away.

592
00:45:55.960 --> 00:46:00.360
So they bought it and threw the can. And then they released it and it's go time original a couple

593
00:46:00.360 --> 00:46:05.080
years later. But um, that was, so both of those back to back were just super devastating for me

594
00:46:05.080 --> 00:46:10.360
in really my career, you know, um, but yeah, there's, there's like Astro Boy was, is one of my favorite

595
00:46:10.360 --> 00:46:16.680
scores. Another film that completely tanked, you know, um, and that was just a pure joy for me. In

596
00:46:16.680 --> 00:46:21.000
fact, it was probably the, the most fun I've ever had on a film score despite how much music it was,

597
00:46:21.480 --> 00:46:27.240
um, because it was, was happy. I was just, this was on the heels of, of Valkyrie, which was,

598
00:46:27.240 --> 00:46:33.160
the, which was, you know, execution scene, you know, heavy, serious, you know, and then, um,

599
00:46:33.160 --> 00:46:38.200
and then this was just pure joy and, um, I could wear my emotions and I sleeve because it was

600
00:46:38.200 --> 00:46:42.920
animated. And I'm, and of course, I was like, wow, I'm gonna do more animated films now. This

601
00:46:42.920 --> 00:46:47.480
is gonna be awesome. This is gonna show how I, I got this fucking animation prowess, you know,

602
00:46:47.480 --> 00:46:52.440
I can, I can do this kick ass score and then it bombed. And so you're only as good as how good

603
00:46:52.440 --> 00:46:56.440
the film did. You're not gonna get more animation work for a film, the tank. I'm gonna have

604
00:46:56.440 --> 00:47:02.120
good your score is, you know, um, and the flip side, you know, there are lots of, um, um,

605
00:47:03.160 --> 00:47:09.160
terrible scores written for great films that, that sort of elevated along with, with the film, you

606
00:47:09.160 --> 00:47:14.920
know, and they're, and there are, and there are, and there are great scores, um, um, that get written

607
00:47:14.920 --> 00:47:19.800
to terrible movies, you know, AstroBore wasn't terrible, but it just, it just didn't catch on, yeah.

608
00:47:20.360 --> 00:47:23.640
Sure. So it's the scores that, in a way, kind of, we're gonna know and guess.

609
00:47:24.200 --> 00:47:29.880
So in a sense, it's kind of like the scores and the movies that your faves are the ones that

610
00:47:29.880 --> 00:47:34.280
kind of got away, in a sense, that kind of didn't maybe find the, sort of a lament that goes

611
00:47:34.280 --> 00:47:39.240
along with them, you know, um, and then sometimes your favorite scores are like, like Cusco Spain

612
00:47:39.240 --> 00:47:45.000
brings one of favorite scores, right? But, but the mix on it in the movie is so terrible. I can't

613
00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:50.920
watch it. It makes me want to just want to kick a shotgun and find the mixer. It's like, well,

614
00:47:50.920 --> 00:47:58.040
how it's like, anyway, but, um, uh, yeah. I mean, well, I was actually going to ask about

615
00:47:58.040 --> 00:48:00.760
Shane Black, I mean, in your relationship, your working relationship with him. I mean, why,

616
00:48:00.760 --> 00:48:05.000
why was Cusco Spain bang? Why was the mix on that, such a sort of tricky process? Well, you know,

617
00:48:05.720 --> 00:48:10.120
I was, you know, I tell composers, and I, and I must have been busy on something. Go to,

618
00:48:10.120 --> 00:48:14.040
go to the mix. Don't go to the mix because you're going to walk and say, push on my music up,

619
00:48:14.040 --> 00:48:19.000
but go to the mix and, and, and make a case like, hey, you know, I, I mean, when I go to the mix,

620
00:48:19.000 --> 00:48:23.880
they don't really, because I'm an editor too, they don't really see the guy walking in with an

621
00:48:23.880 --> 00:48:27.240
agenda. There's an intelligent crank all the music. In fact, sometimes they tell them to bring it

622
00:48:27.240 --> 00:48:33.400
back because that wasn't the intent of the music. But, um, I always say, look, you're, you're right

623
00:48:33.400 --> 00:48:37.160
in the line of involvement here, you know, you're, you're just, you're just under that threshold.

624
00:48:37.160 --> 00:48:41.800
And so the music now is often one of tactics I use. The music is having the opposite effect.

625
00:48:41.800 --> 00:48:46.440
It's lolling me. It's not your treating me now. If you, if you, if you just below that threshold,

626
00:48:46.440 --> 00:48:50.280
if you just, if you just see that threshold a little bit, I'll be involved in the film again,

627
00:48:50.280 --> 00:48:53.800
and I'll, I'll be sucked in. And I think it's largely true. Despite the fact that Kiske's

628
00:48:53.800 --> 00:48:59.480
Bang Man is such a good film, um, I, I felt that the score really was just under that line a lot.

629
00:48:59.480 --> 00:49:04.040
Or there's moments where, where, okay, everyone stopped talking. Now the guys on the sidewalk

630
00:49:04.600 --> 00:49:08.760
pushed the score up a little bit. Let's, you know, let's, let's have some fun with, but it's just,

631
00:49:08.760 --> 00:49:13.880
was just flat the whole time. It makes you want to scream, you know. Um, but anyway, uh, yeah,

632
00:49:13.880 --> 00:49:19.400
but that's one of my favorites. Yeah. Well, it's, it's a cracking score. And I mean,

633
00:49:19.400 --> 00:49:22.680
and with Shane, like, it's obviously you went on to do the nice guys with him, which is another

634
00:49:22.680 --> 00:49:27.080
fantastic score. I mean, what's Shane like as a director to work with as a, as compared to some

635
00:49:27.080 --> 00:49:35.080
of the other directors you've worked with? Um, well, he, he, um, he, he, he, he, he, he's a lot of

636
00:49:35.080 --> 00:49:40.040
trust in you, you know, um, he can be often a little schizophrenic with his ideas,

637
00:49:40.040 --> 00:49:46.600
meaning that one today, there's this idea, there's this idea, but it's funny, um, but he's a great

638
00:49:46.600 --> 00:49:51.480
guy. He's, he's very, um, he's sometimes on like another plane, you know, where you're going to tap

639
00:49:51.480 --> 00:49:57.560
into what he's thinking. Um, uh, but on those movies, um, it was where the Joel Silver show, um,

640
00:49:57.560 --> 00:50:03.240
even Shane would admit, you know, Joel Silver basically, um, when he did those movies, it's like,

641
00:50:03.240 --> 00:50:07.640
um, that's the guy I was working with. And so all of the Joel Silver films, no matter who was

642
00:50:07.640 --> 00:50:13.400
directing, it was, it was me and Joel Silver in a room, you know, so that's, uh, you know, and I

643
00:50:13.400 --> 00:50:18.680
guess it's, I mean, it worked for us. He, he, he had a lot of, uh, we had mutual respect for

644
00:50:18.680 --> 00:50:23.000
another. I was scared to shitless of Joel Silver when I first met him because I heard he was such a monster.

645
00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:26.600
And, you know, and I heard all these horrible stories that I, I walked in like shaking to my boots,

646
00:50:26.600 --> 00:50:30.600
like, hi, I'm John Altman, you know, but he ended up being this pussy cat, at least with me, you

647
00:50:30.600 --> 00:50:36.120
know, but, um, I would hear him yelling at other people, but, but we had a, we had a really good

648
00:50:36.120 --> 00:50:40.920
relationship. And he comes from the, he came in the old school of film scoring of strong themes,

649
00:50:40.920 --> 00:50:44.920
melodies, and so forth. That's what he wanted to hear. Um, and he was very sophisticated with film

650
00:50:44.920 --> 00:50:50.360
music. And so, um, um, I really enjoyed working with them. It just as he, as a later, he had, he

651
00:50:50.360 --> 00:50:55.640
ended up sort of letting the film mix, uh, he always felt he couldn't hear the dialogue. And so

652
00:50:55.640 --> 00:51:03.160
everything was started lowered, you know, and, um, uh, anyway. So Joel was kind of more of the,

653
00:51:03.240 --> 00:51:07.320
the sort of the presence in the room in, in the, in the mixing, composing space rather than

654
00:51:07.320 --> 00:51:14.760
shame. Yeah, I mean, really in post production, uh, Joel is basically, uh, kind of, I will say he

655
00:51:14.760 --> 00:51:20.840
takes over, but he's a very hands-on, very, very hands-on producer. And, um, and I respected that

656
00:51:20.840 --> 00:51:26.120
about him, you know, and how do you, um, I guess, like, mediate that because I think one of the,

657
00:51:26.120 --> 00:51:30.360
one of the jobs of being a composer and, as I, as I know, is to be in some ways a good psychologist

658
00:51:30.360 --> 00:51:34.120
and a good reader of people. I mean, how do you mediate that in the room? Well, you know,

659
00:51:34.120 --> 00:51:39.640
I told all that to both composers and editors, I go, you know, half your job is, is being a diplomat.

660
00:51:40.360 --> 00:51:45.560
And, uh, for many reasons, explaining why you want something done in diplomatic ways and,

661
00:51:45.560 --> 00:51:50.600
and not like, no self-serving ways and, and, and really fielding, uh, different people

662
00:51:50.600 --> 00:51:55.080
with different opinions and really building consensus. I'm a classic example of that is when you

663
00:51:55.080 --> 00:52:00.120
have a test screen for a film. And then you, and then the next day, you've got 30 people on a

664
00:52:00.120 --> 00:52:05.320
long table, all with their own agendas, all interpreting the test scores the way they want to say

665
00:52:05.320 --> 00:52:09.400
that what they meant, you know, if some guy thinks this, this scene should have been cut, well,

666
00:52:09.960 --> 00:52:13.000
30 people said this one's there for which you've got this scene and you have to remind them,

667
00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:17.960
well, it was 700 people in the room, you know, and so you got to, you build the consensus. And so

668
00:52:17.960 --> 00:52:23.400
I, it's very necessary for you to be a diplomat, um, for both of those jobs, especially in my

669
00:52:23.400 --> 00:52:30.920
situation with, um, with Brian, um, and, and, and in particular, we mean, Rhapsody, you know,

670
00:52:30.920 --> 00:52:37.320
where I was left as sort of like, um, navigate the film with Graham, you know, and so I was acting

671
00:52:37.320 --> 00:52:44.280
like the director, where it's less about, um, my editor work and so forth. It's more about, um,

672
00:52:44.280 --> 00:52:51.080
protecting the taste of the movie and, and, and protecting scenes and so forth. Um, and,

673
00:52:51.160 --> 00:52:55.720
you know, writing five-page memos at three in the morning because you're worried about,

674
00:52:55.720 --> 00:53:00.360
you know, to Graham telling him, you don't, don't let the studio do this, blah, blah, blah, you

675
00:53:00.360 --> 00:53:05.800
know, and then we play really, um, some crafty games, you know, we, we, the, we, the,

676
00:53:05.800 --> 00:53:11.240
the, we were actually, um, scored very high, um, from the very first reading, but you think we

677
00:53:11.240 --> 00:53:16.040
had this film in crisis because the studio saw the film as Mamamia and we saw, and Graham and I

678
00:53:16.040 --> 00:53:23.800
saw the film as something entirely different. And so, um, we placated the studio by cutting a

679
00:53:23.800 --> 00:53:28.760
couple scenes for a test screening, they wanted to cut. They wanted to cut half the scene out where

680
00:53:28.760 --> 00:53:32.280
he, where he, this is the band in the living room, which is a great scene. He tells me he doesn't

681
00:53:32.280 --> 00:53:36.680
want them to be with him anymore and this, and why I want to break free that whole sequence,

682
00:53:36.680 --> 00:53:42.920
when the studio wanted to cut that out. And so we did the dangerous game of, of testing the film

683
00:53:43.000 --> 00:53:49.240
with those out. Now, had the score stay the same or gone up, we would have screwed. So we went on

684
00:53:49.240 --> 00:53:53.800
faith, they would drop and they did substantially. So then we got to put those scenes back. And those

685
00:53:53.800 --> 00:53:58.760
the games, the games you play, you know, and, um, you know, endless debates and the pleading

686
00:53:58.760 --> 00:54:03.320
and the, and the explaining, explaining why he needs to be there, why has to be in that form.

687
00:54:03.320 --> 00:54:09.320
Anyway, it's just, you know, bottom line is you have to be a good communicator. Um, and not

688
00:54:09.320 --> 00:54:14.920
seeing someone with a gender, but someone who clearly has a vision for the film and, and, um, and

689
00:54:16.840 --> 00:54:21.400
for the right reasons, you know, I don't know. Absolutely. Yeah. And I didn't want to actually

690
00:54:21.400 --> 00:54:25.000
ask about, um, what you just said there about the sort of the, I guess the post-production on

691
00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:30.280
being perhaps because, as we say, you know, Brian was not in the room and Dexter finished the

692
00:54:30.280 --> 00:54:34.120
film and they went off to do Rocky Man. So in a way, you're kind of the keeper of the flame

693
00:54:34.120 --> 00:54:38.200
of the film in that situation, which is quite a unique situation to be in. I mean, how do you,

694
00:54:38.200 --> 00:54:43.160
how did you personally deal with that and navigate that being such a sort of, it's such a key

695
00:54:43.160 --> 00:54:46.760
position and having to deal with so much? Well, in one way, I was kind of used to it because

696
00:54:46.760 --> 00:54:52.360
let's just say in the previous couple films with Brian, there was some similar situations where

697
00:54:52.360 --> 00:54:57.560
he wasn't around a lot, you know, so, um, and that's not unheard of. I'm not going to slam Brian.

698
00:54:57.560 --> 00:55:03.880
I mean, a lot of times for whatever reason that's a director of all people is, uh, either busy

699
00:55:04.120 --> 00:55:12.120
preparing for another film or, or for various reasons they're not there. So, um, this was something

700
00:55:12.120 --> 00:55:19.160
that, um, with the same executive at, at, um, at Fox, um, I was used to doing. So I had battled with,

701
00:55:19.160 --> 00:55:26.280
not battled with, you know, it battled the wrong word. I had, um, worked with, uh, uh, passionately,

702
00:55:27.480 --> 00:55:33.080
the Fox executives on two prior films, prior to, um, to, to Boehmeer Absolutely. So they were used to

703
00:55:33.080 --> 00:55:40.760
my, to me, you know, and, and, and, and, and hash it out. And so, um, it wasn't that different.

704
00:55:40.760 --> 00:55:45.880
Having said that though, if I really believed in something, um, I'm like, when the X-Men films,

705
00:55:45.880 --> 00:55:50.760
then Brian would go to battle, forming, and he would, some, you know, I would, you know,

706
00:55:50.760 --> 00:55:56.520
sick him on the, the executive isn't, and get my way, um, where I didn't have around on this one.

707
00:55:56.520 --> 00:56:01.720
So, yeah, it was, it was hard, but I, but I'd Graham King, who is, uh, you know, a very heavyweight

708
00:56:01.720 --> 00:56:08.680
producer. And so, um, you know, uh, we got it done somehow. So it's, this is part of filmmaking,

709
00:56:08.680 --> 00:56:13.640
which is, which is the, the insane part that, you know, if filmmaking was just like, oh,

710
00:56:13.640 --> 00:56:18.040
go write a film score. And, um, we'll see you in a couple of months. And, um, you know,

711
00:56:18.040 --> 00:56:22.120
and then you can just go move on the next thing. You know, happy, happy, happy, you know,

712
00:56:22.120 --> 00:56:26.040
I'll be writing a lot more scores, adding more films right now. But that's, that's not the way

713
00:56:26.040 --> 00:56:31.160
filmmaking goes. You know, filmmaking is all about battling, battling, and I know me not in

714
00:56:31.160 --> 00:56:35.480
the negative term. It's like, you know, it's, it's a creative, um, it's working to create

715
00:56:35.480 --> 00:56:39.400
if things out with, with, with many people with different ideas and opinions. And, and so,

716
00:56:39.400 --> 00:56:46.040
again, the bottom line is, my job is to build consensus and kind of guide that consensus

717
00:56:46.040 --> 00:56:51.800
in the way it wants. Absolutely. And, and after all of that work, I mean, specifically on

718
00:56:51.800 --> 00:56:54.920
Beaming Rhapsody, of course, you know, like, difficult production, you know, difficult post

719
00:56:54.920 --> 00:56:59.000
production, you know, all that work. And then, you know, the movie comes out. It's a hit,

720
00:56:59.000 --> 00:57:02.600
you win your Oscar for best editing. I mean, how did it feel to, I guess, finally,

721
00:57:02.600 --> 00:57:07.240
have the little gold man after all of that work, after all of that, I guess, turmoil that came

722
00:57:07.240 --> 00:57:12.920
out of making that film to finally get that. Well, I mean, it, it felt good because that was

723
00:57:12.920 --> 00:57:21.640
such a bizarre circumstance. And, um, I felt that, um, I deserved it. That's about one, you know,

724
00:57:21.640 --> 00:57:25.960
but it's hard because you're up against guys who also did an amazing job. God knows what they

725
00:57:25.960 --> 00:57:31.480
navigated. Um, and to get their films to, to, in the great state they were, you know, they,

726
00:57:31.480 --> 00:57:36.760
they were terrific editors. So it's always hard that one arbitrarily, uh, it gets picked. But,

727
00:57:37.320 --> 00:57:43.800
but it does feel like, oh, I was seen. That, you know, that's it. It's like my, my, it's really

728
00:57:43.800 --> 00:57:47.720
the nomination really. I mean, you want to win, right? But the nomination means a lot because it's

729
00:57:47.720 --> 00:57:52.040
because the nominations by your peers. It's by the people who see what you're doing, they understand,

730
00:57:52.600 --> 00:57:58.120
and that's, and that's the most important one. Um, when it goes to the general, you know,

731
00:57:58.120 --> 00:58:03.560
academy, I really have to really know, you know, how can you know what, what, what, what, what,

732
00:58:04.360 --> 00:58:07.800
the first of all, they don't know what you dealt with with any editor dealt with, you know,

733
00:58:07.800 --> 00:58:12.760
it's hard to know. You can only tell if he's edited poorly, but you don't know, um, just with

734
00:58:12.760 --> 00:58:18.920
the miracles that were performed on a film, you know, um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, I, it's, you know,

735
00:58:18.920 --> 00:58:24.120
I did funny things. I wasn't really that, I, I sort of a half-slap empty person and I just go

736
00:58:24.120 --> 00:58:27.800
through life that way. So I never disappointed by anything. I just feel like, you know, it's never

737
00:58:27.800 --> 00:58:32.920
going to happen if it happens great. And so I was that way with that. And my partner was the one

738
00:58:32.920 --> 00:58:37.560
who was just like, you know, uh, catatonic the whole evening, you know, it's like, we were sitting

739
00:58:37.560 --> 00:58:41.160
there and I think Brian name was performing on stage. And I was like, oh, that's, that's pretty

740
00:58:41.160 --> 00:58:46.120
cool. And I look over to him. He's like, you know, just whole night waiting. You know, it's so,

741
00:58:46.120 --> 00:58:50.680
it's like, so I, I always have it a good tie, you know, and the funny thing that one memory I have

742
00:58:50.680 --> 00:58:55.640
of that is like, you know, everyone dreams of getting some Oscar, right? And so as a kid, I was,

743
00:58:55.640 --> 00:59:00.520
I'd always think it's that ever happened. I'd be so terrified being up there knowing like,

744
00:59:00.520 --> 00:59:05.480
what a billion people are watching, right? And I, I, it's this fear I had that ever happened

745
00:59:05.480 --> 00:59:11.400
with what would I do? And you, it's weird. When you're there, I guess especially now, you don't

746
00:59:11.400 --> 00:59:15.400
see any cameras. It's all automated. You don't know. I couldn't tell you where the cameras were.

747
00:59:15.400 --> 00:59:19.960
And the room feels much smaller than, than you think it is. And right in the front rows,

748
00:59:19.960 --> 00:59:25.160
are you, are the people you know that worked on the movie? And so it wasn't, wasn't nervous at all.

749
00:59:26.120 --> 00:59:31.320
Or I would say at all, but I wasn't that nervous, you know, I've stupidly told the audience,

750
00:59:31.320 --> 00:59:35.400
hold my mom was. I don't know why in the audience. My mom's here, she's 85. Like, why don't I say that?

751
00:59:35.400 --> 00:59:43.320
But, but, um, yeah. So the only, the only thing I had nervous about, nervous is about really was,

752
00:59:43.320 --> 00:59:47.960
there's this thing that Eddie, that Fredy's father tells him about good deeds, good something,

753
00:59:48.200 --> 00:59:53.560
I can't even remember it. And I knew what now, I knew that if I wanted, I wanted to say that. And,

754
00:59:54.360 --> 00:59:59.480
and that's the thing it was terrified of. I would forget like I am now exactly what he said. And

755
00:59:59.480 --> 01:00:04.520
it just came off. You know, thank God came out. Yeah. I guess when you get up there in front of all

756
01:00:04.520 --> 01:00:08.040
those people and you've got the stage, I mean, I guess that's where just when English becomes

757
01:00:08.040 --> 01:00:11.960
a second language is Robert Williams, you said, you know, like, it's, it's like, what do, what?

758
01:00:11.960 --> 01:00:15.400
So I had a, like a rabbit in the headlight. So what do I do? I mean, that's how I think I would,

759
01:00:15.400 --> 01:00:19.720
obviously, react to that. No, you know, it's, it's really there. When you're there and everything,

760
01:00:19.720 --> 01:00:25.000
it's like, uh, but also when you become jaded, you bit around business for a while. It's really,

761
01:00:25.000 --> 01:00:28.760
it's, it's really different situation. Probably if I had one for usual suspects, you know,

762
01:00:28.760 --> 01:00:33.240
or something and walked up there, I'd probably be a different person up there than I was then, you know,

763
01:00:34.200 --> 01:00:38.280
for sure. And, and after you won the Oscar, I mean, because you mentioned earlier, like in between

764
01:00:38.280 --> 01:00:42.200
working on Bo rap and working on Michael, like you were trying to get some film projects on the

765
01:00:42.280 --> 01:00:46.600
ground as a director. I mean, with the Oscar, then, like, I guess in your back pocket, was that kind of,

766
01:00:46.600 --> 01:00:50.760
did that give you fuel to be like, right? Okay. Yeah, I mean, it propelled out and I had this, uh,

767
01:00:52.120 --> 01:00:57.960
this, this amazing script, um, that, that's been around for decades, actually, and, uh, long story

768
01:00:57.960 --> 01:01:03.320
story. And it's about the biopic of the Valdi. And, um, again, I wouldn't expect to be doing that

769
01:01:03.320 --> 01:01:07.720
because I was the sci-fi revenge, revenge film guy, right? But it's like, I read this script and

770
01:01:07.720 --> 01:01:11.560
it's like, this is the frickin' great story. No, no, even if you don't know who Valdi is,

771
01:01:11.560 --> 01:01:15.240
you know, it's not your grand, I mean, and I re-wrote the script to make it sort of like wide appeals.

772
01:01:15.240 --> 01:01:19.240
It's not your grandmother's biopic. It cannot, like, mortal beloved, which was this Beethoven film,

773
01:01:19.240 --> 01:01:23.400
which one of you want to shoot yourself on the head. You know, this was more, it was great. It's

774
01:01:23.400 --> 01:01:30.440
the fantastic story. So I, um, I, I had a set up over it, um, New Regency and then COVID hit and,

775
01:01:30.440 --> 01:01:34.920
and the Regency, New Regency didn't like the direction. I guess that we were rewriting it and,

776
01:01:35.000 --> 01:01:39.000
and the thing fell through. So then, uh, for since then, I've been trying to resurrect it,

777
01:01:39.000 --> 01:01:42.760
but it's very difficult to get a feel like it off the ground because it's not superheroes and

778
01:01:42.760 --> 01:01:48.760
capes or planes exploding. It's, it's about a composer and it's a budget. It's about 35 million,

779
01:01:49.400 --> 01:01:54.120
for shot and hungry for Venice, you know, and, um, so that's really hard to get off the ground.

780
01:01:54.120 --> 01:01:59.000
But there's another one I, I'm working on, which is, uh, um, uh, the site of the low budget

781
01:01:59.000 --> 01:02:03.960
film, which I want, um, it's about the early years of Billy Joel. And just fell into my lap and

782
01:02:03.960 --> 01:02:08.200
I've been working on this ever since. So that's the new thing that, um, I'm trying to get out

783
01:02:08.200 --> 01:02:13.720
the ground and, um, it's, it's, it's an amazing script. Um, it's really just covers Billy Joel

784
01:02:13.720 --> 01:02:20.040
from age of 16 to 23. That's it. And his manager and how it's like a buddy picture. And, um, it's,

785
01:02:20.040 --> 01:02:26.120
I just, I'm just, um, every day I'm working on that to, uh, try to perpetuate it. And, um,

786
01:02:26.920 --> 01:02:32.040
so we'll see what happens, you know, so yeah, as everyone knows, who's trying to get a film off the

787
01:02:32.040 --> 01:02:36.360
ground. It's a full-time job for something that may not get her go, you know, it's like

788
01:02:36.360 --> 01:02:40.840
winning the lottery. But this one, this one, uh, every filmmaker thinks there's no brainer.

789
01:02:40.840 --> 01:02:46.200
How could you not make this movie? Because it's got Billy Joel IP. It's like maybe 15 million

790
01:02:46.200 --> 01:02:50.040
dollars. How can you go wrong? Even if it sucks, you'll make your money back. So this is what I'm

791
01:02:50.040 --> 01:02:54.760
trying to, uh, to do right now. My agents are doing a good job. They're packaging it. We're trying

792
01:02:54.760 --> 01:03:01.000
to find, uh, who that guy would be, you know, um, for sure. And he's Billy Joel. So the music's

793
01:03:01.000 --> 01:03:06.520
fantastic. And he's got a, a mass appeal. So yeah, no brainer, I guess. Yeah. Well, this is

794
01:03:06.520 --> 01:03:11.320
sort of a earliest career we use to singing covers and so forth, which is, which is why the film

795
01:03:11.320 --> 01:03:16.200
is less expensive. I guess we don't have all this music. But, uh, but, uh, but the, the power of the,

796
01:03:16.200 --> 01:03:20.760
of the story is so good that, um, um, it has been totally jazz. So that, that's anyway, that,

797
01:03:20.760 --> 01:03:24.440
that's one of my, uh, one of my things I'm always working on. So there's always something that's

798
01:03:24.440 --> 01:03:28.920
going on. And I'm never just kicking back and, you know, well, now they do. I just watch streaming

799
01:03:29.000 --> 01:03:35.400
shows of night after about 7 p.m. That's, it's just TV time, you know, fantastic. So it's

800
01:03:35.400 --> 01:03:38.920
interesting that both those projects, I guess, musical theme, you have a valedine, Billy Joel,

801
01:03:38.920 --> 01:03:45.640
too. It's overgar, right? Because again, you know, um, like I said, I'm not going to repeat myself.

802
01:03:45.640 --> 01:03:50.040
I will. I was always wanting to do the thriller. The, you know, the suspects kind of mood, you

803
01:03:50.040 --> 01:03:54.600
know, the heist, you know, that stuff really gets me going. But it's like so weird that now,

804
01:03:54.600 --> 01:03:59.400
I think it's a sign of age because I was even telling the writer of, uh, of the Billy Joel

805
01:03:59.400 --> 01:04:02.840
movie, which called Billy and me. It's like, you know, just 10 years ago, I wouldn't have been

806
01:04:02.840 --> 01:04:07.480
able to understand this film because I, you know, I was all about, you know, the twists and the

807
01:04:07.480 --> 01:04:12.440
action and the plot, you know, and not about relationships and, and, and what people would do in

808
01:04:12.440 --> 01:04:17.320
these, in these, in these family situations. And there's lots of sub stories in this movie about

809
01:04:17.320 --> 01:04:21.800
Billy and his mother and he's, and he's has this, um, this pain for his dad leading him as a kid.

810
01:04:22.280 --> 01:04:25.320
And, um, you know, and he's ignoring his mother when he really should be

811
01:04:25.320 --> 01:04:29.720
paying attention to her, but it's all about his dad, you know, this ghost, you know, uh, he's all

812
01:04:29.720 --> 01:04:34.680
these other stories. His manager has a wife and their, their situation. And I'm really jazzed by it

813
01:04:34.680 --> 01:04:39.240
and never would have been into this kind of movie ever. You know, um, so yeah, it's, it's the

814
01:04:39.240 --> 01:04:45.160
sign of you crossed this line of wisdom in your life. And this stuff now just becomes second nature

815
01:04:45.160 --> 01:04:49.640
to me and what someone would do and how I rewrite that scene with a writer. Um, it's, it's, it's,

816
01:04:49.640 --> 01:04:53.480
it's, it's, it comes so quickly to me. Um, and it wouldn't have just 10 years ago.

817
01:04:54.120 --> 01:04:58.360
Mm-hmm. Fantastic. Well, fingers crossed, you know, via, I mean, that, that this project comes

818
01:04:58.360 --> 01:05:02.920
together. I mean, because it sounds fantastic. Yeah. It is. I swear.

819
01:05:04.920 --> 01:05:10.520
You sold me on it. You've sold me on it. I'm, and for me, you know, when I, it takes, I,

820
01:05:10.520 --> 01:05:13.800
I didn't know much about Billy Joel, frankly, you know, here it goes. It's the same situation.

821
01:05:13.800 --> 01:05:18.360
I get into these movies and I get so passionate, but I don't really know, and initially, who these

822
01:05:18.360 --> 01:05:21.720
people are, you know, I know Billy Joel, but it wasn't really, you know, but then the story so

823
01:05:21.720 --> 01:05:27.480
fucking great. And I saw, you know, a long hair cigarette smoke and film grain and handheld camera.

824
01:05:27.480 --> 01:05:32.520
That's to terms me as a filmmaker. I can see this whole movie, you know, um, I want it to be gritty

825
01:05:32.520 --> 01:05:36.760
like you're watching a Scorsese movie, you know, that's, that's the feel I want to have for it.

826
01:05:37.160 --> 01:05:43.080
Um, yeah, so we'll see. Other than that, you know, um, see what happens, you know, I'll go on a cruise.

827
01:05:43.080 --> 01:05:44.600
I don't know.

828
01:05:45.400 --> 01:05:48.520
Brilliant. Well, hey, I mean, I feel like you didn't, you've earned one after this. I mean,

829
01:05:48.520 --> 01:05:52.440
we're after Michael. I mean, it's likely back to some, uh, some of your early work, if I may,

830
01:05:52.440 --> 01:05:56.360
because I mean, as we said at the start, I mean, I'm such a fan of so much of the work you've done,

831
01:05:56.360 --> 01:06:01.160
but I guess the, the work that sort of jacked me into sort of John Ommandland was, was X2.

832
01:06:01.160 --> 01:06:06.040
And you'll work on the X-Men films, which is just fantastic. And having, of course, you know,

833
01:06:06.040 --> 01:06:10.760
X2 was your first sort of foray into superhero cinema and that genre and having just,

834
01:06:10.760 --> 01:06:15.320
having done usual suspects a few years before to then find yourself doing get this huge blockbuster.

835
01:06:15.320 --> 01:06:19.400
I mean, what was it like coming on to that series as composer and editor, you know, like,

836
01:06:19.400 --> 01:06:20.680
both of those? What was it like?

837
01:06:20.680 --> 01:06:25.800
Well, I'll tell you, um, the funny, I couldn't do X-Men 1 because I was off shooting my,

838
01:06:25.800 --> 01:06:31.640
my masterpiece, uh, Urban Legend 2, you know, so I was, I was, I couldn't do it. Um,

839
01:06:31.640 --> 01:06:35.960
and they were even going to try to rearrange their post schedules so I could come on,

840
01:06:35.960 --> 01:06:42.920
but it didn't work out. So, um, and I don't know if you know how legendary the debacle was behind

841
01:06:42.920 --> 01:06:46.680
the scenes in X-Men 1. I was expected to be a horrible film knowing what I knew about the,

842
01:06:46.680 --> 01:06:51.400
and I turned out, I thought it turned out fine when I saw it in the theater. Um, but behind the scenes,

843
01:06:51.400 --> 01:06:55.720
it was, uh, because I wasn't there and Brian's used to how I work. He's worse, he's used to going

844
01:06:55.720 --> 01:07:00.840
away and I present him with stuff and, and he's used to me telling him, here's what the score needs to be,

845
01:07:00.840 --> 01:07:05.800
you know, and he lets me go do it and then he responds and, and so he, I was sort of the guide

846
01:07:05.960 --> 01:07:10.920
in, you know, in that relationship, but with him, and we had a similar taste factor and so, you

847
01:07:10.920 --> 01:07:13.640
know, and I would present him something, he would be critical of something, but we'd work it out.

848
01:07:13.640 --> 01:07:18.440
But basically, he'd depend on me for the, the impetus of the ideas. On X-Men 1,

849
01:07:19.720 --> 01:07:23.320
people didn't work that way. Michael Cayman says, well, what do you want me to do? You know,

850
01:07:23.320 --> 01:07:28.440
and, uh, and Brian says, well, you know, like a 70's kind of score, but that's not what he meant.

851
01:07:28.440 --> 01:07:32.920
What, what, Brian and I, we, we, we, we, Worship Phil's of the 70's, it was a very,

852
01:07:32.920 --> 01:07:39.800
very, like, pure time of filmmaking. And so, our stuff reflects that, but it's not that,

853
01:07:39.800 --> 01:07:43.160
and I said, when he told Cayman that, he went off and did the 70's kind of score and so,

854
01:07:43.160 --> 01:07:48.840
they became this big, constantly nightmarish, rewriting thing on the scoring stage and, and, um,

855
01:07:48.840 --> 01:07:53.240
they still talk about it to this day, you know, the, the, the meltdowns that happened and so forth.

856
01:07:53.240 --> 01:07:57.720
And I guess in the editing room, they had five editors on board and I guess they hated each other

857
01:07:57.720 --> 01:08:02.120
and they all hated Brian. It was like this whole crazy thing. The reason I'm telling you all this,

858
01:08:02.120 --> 01:08:09.080
because you asked the question, how the feel of walking into X-Men 2? Well, so we're, we're in Vancouver

859
01:08:09.080 --> 01:08:14.600
and I walk in the room and Tom Rothen, who's the head of the studio, is there and, um,

860
01:08:14.600 --> 01:08:19.240
I think this thing was like a dinner with some actors and stuff and, um, and, uh, Brian had used to me,

861
01:08:19.240 --> 01:08:24.280
and he goes, you're John Alman, because, because Brian through X-Men 1 would say, well,

862
01:08:24.280 --> 01:08:26.360
John would do this, well, John would do this, well, John would do this, well, John would do this,

863
01:08:26.360 --> 01:08:30.280
well, John would do this and, and his editor told him, you mentioned John Alman's name one more time,

864
01:08:30.280 --> 01:08:33.960
I'm going to throw, I mean, I'm going to throw this bottle into your head, you know, and we could

865
01:08:33.960 --> 01:08:39.080
actually throw a bottle through the, through the window when Brian wouldn't just shut up about me.

866
01:08:39.080 --> 01:08:44.840
Nothing, I'm like the God's gift, but it, because Brian's whole orientation was our relationship

867
01:08:44.840 --> 01:08:50.040
and he wanted everything to work the way we work. Um, and I'll never forget, I walked into the

868
01:08:50.040 --> 01:08:56.520
final dub of X-Men 1, just to say hi, you know, and the, the editor was up at the console with,

869
01:08:57.000 --> 01:09:00.840
with the, with the, with the mixer, and Lauren Shirley Donner was, uh, one of the producers,

870
01:09:00.840 --> 01:09:05.800
she was, oh, it's John Alman, and that guy's head whipped around and laser beams could have come

871
01:09:05.800 --> 01:09:09.800
out of his eyes and blasted my head off, you know, and I'm like, I would just, you know, I didn't do

872
01:09:09.800 --> 01:09:15.640
anything, I'm just visiting, you know, and so when I entered that, that meeting that, to kick off

873
01:09:15.640 --> 01:09:21.800
dinner for X-Men 2, my shit could never smell bad, you know, it's like, um, that they were just like,

874
01:09:22.760 --> 01:09:29.240
he's here, do it, you know, and so I really had a lot of goodwill coming in the film and it's

875
01:09:29.240 --> 01:09:33.640
great because it freed me, it freed me to do my thing without feeling to someone with breathing

876
01:09:33.640 --> 01:09:41.320
over my shoulder all the time like studio. They just trusted what I did, um, and, um, uh, and we had

877
01:09:41.320 --> 01:09:46.120
literally very, very little interference. Um, there's a really funny story I have with X-Men 2,

878
01:09:46.920 --> 01:09:51.160
um, I've told this a lot of people, but, um, and everyone knows this was involved in the movie,

879
01:09:51.160 --> 01:09:56.760
this critical moment. So, Tom Rothner is a great guy. He was the head of the studio, you know,

880
01:09:56.760 --> 01:09:59.960
we have this friends and family screening because we didn't like test screenings for films like that,

881
01:09:59.960 --> 01:10:04.200
we just had, we had friends and family, which people you know come in and, you know, end the crew

882
01:10:04.200 --> 01:10:11.240
and everything, they watch the film, we watch the back and Tom Rothner stood up and he was like,

883
01:10:12.200 --> 01:10:17.480
guys, you know, it's great, but it's, no one's got to understand, it's just way too confusing

884
01:10:17.480 --> 01:10:20.760
because you know, he had those ultimate realities in cerebral. You have the little girl who's

885
01:10:20.760 --> 01:10:24.600
really an illusion and you have the, you know, and he's like, we got to, we got to simplify this

886
01:10:24.600 --> 01:10:29.960
little blah, I mean, and then his, his, um, his 10-year-old daughter was there with him and he looked

887
01:10:29.960 --> 01:10:34.440
to her and he goes, I forgot her name, he goes, he goes, you know, Sandra, whatever. Do you know what

888
01:10:34.440 --> 01:10:38.760
happened with this film? Oh, yes, daddy. And she stood up and she gave this whole summary of

889
01:10:38.760 --> 01:10:43.000
everything happening with film, how the different realities and so forth. So, in that moment,

890
01:10:43.000 --> 01:10:47.800
we sat there with this collective sigh of relief with your hold in our breath and she saved that

891
01:10:47.800 --> 01:10:54.600
movie. His daughter saved that film because because of her being able to just tell him everything

892
01:10:54.600 --> 01:10:59.560
was happening in the film, we didn't touch it. You know, that's how crazy, that's how crazy

893
01:10:59.560 --> 01:11:07.960
film making is. His 10-year-old daughter saved X-Men too. That's, yeah. Your ideal audience screening,

894
01:11:07.960 --> 01:11:11.960
the screening audience member, I guess, yeah, like test screening. Yeah, yeah. So,

895
01:11:11.960 --> 01:11:18.440
what do you just, you just get set? And I also, I learned the term gilded, gilded lily on that,

896
01:11:18.440 --> 01:11:24.600
on that movie. I never heard that term before. And like I said, Tom didn't have much, we do,

897
01:11:24.600 --> 01:11:29.480
really, we're not, um, the studio was really good to us, no film. We just did what we wanted.

898
01:11:29.480 --> 01:11:34.520
There was very little perspective, but we were on the dub stage and, um, my big musical sequence

899
01:11:34.520 --> 01:11:40.280
for Gene Gray, pushing back the wall of water and all that stuff. And Tom looked at me, he goes,

900
01:11:40.280 --> 01:11:43.480
don't you think you're gilding the lily a bit there? I'm like, whoa.

901
01:11:45.720 --> 01:11:50.360
And I could do like, how dare it, you know, and, um, unfortunately, I was defended by, you know,

902
01:11:50.360 --> 01:11:54.200
Brian, and I think Chris McCory was there, he says, no, it's great, you know, it's like,

903
01:11:54.200 --> 01:11:59.240
you know, but I, but I'll, because that moment was so like, you know, it's seared into my head,

904
01:11:59.240 --> 01:12:03.080
you know, and so now I use that term all the time, you know, oh, I think we're gilded the lily there,

905
01:12:03.080 --> 01:12:08.920
you know, well, it's a fantastic sequence in a fantastic film. It's one of my very films

906
01:12:08.920 --> 01:12:13.320
you've worked on it. And I think it still holds up. And, I mean, like, and that theme of yours,

907
01:12:13.320 --> 01:12:16.600
there is so different from, obviously, for what Kamen did in the first time, that central ex with

908
01:12:16.600 --> 01:12:22.760
one of, you know, did a little bit of that. There's some similarity. I want to sort of be in the same,

909
01:12:24.280 --> 01:12:30.200
ballpark he was, but with that, but, but, but I felt that there was no, there was no second part of it,

910
01:12:30.200 --> 01:12:35.880
you know, that there's no conclusion to what he was doing. And so I want to sort of do a full

911
01:12:35.880 --> 01:12:41.240
fledged thing. And, and yeah, when that, when that equipment was in my editor room, that's the

912
01:12:41.240 --> 01:12:45.560
one thing I did do is I sat there when I, and I just fleshed out those themes for that sort of,

913
01:12:45.560 --> 01:12:53.880
agonizing the long, what do you call overture to the film, which has to be edited down, but,

914
01:12:53.880 --> 01:12:57.560
but, but I just wanted to put every single motif or theme in there that I was thinking of.

915
01:12:58.040 --> 01:13:02.040
Yeah, that whole suite, which is beautiful. I mean, what I did want to ask like, because that theme,

916
01:13:02.040 --> 01:13:04.760
those excellent themes, I mean, because there was a different composer on X-Men than I last

917
01:13:04.760 --> 01:13:08.280
stand, but then when you came back with days of future past, you reintroduced that theme,

918
01:13:08.280 --> 01:13:12.120
and then on Apocalypse. And it's kind of for me, I mean, at least for me, it's become the theme

919
01:13:12.120 --> 01:13:16.840
for the X-Men, automatically. And like, well, what was the germination for that theme,

920
01:13:16.840 --> 01:13:20.920
particularly, you know, that, that sort of iconic, what has become sort of this iconic X-Men theme

921
01:13:20.920 --> 01:13:25.320
for you? What, what was the germ? I don't know in desperation. You sit there and your fingers

922
01:13:25.320 --> 01:13:28.680
are come up with shit and you're like, oh, that sounds amazing. You know, I don't know. I just

923
01:13:28.680 --> 01:13:32.040
don't know. I mean, when you mention Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, like I didn't know it, do that movie,

924
01:13:32.040 --> 01:13:36.680
because that's not a period piece that film. And then I was started, I had an electric piano

925
01:13:37.720 --> 01:13:42.840
patch up on my keyboard, you know, and I just sort of was going, boom, boom, boom, and I go, oh,

926
01:13:43.800 --> 01:13:47.480
what if this film is, what if this is like a retro score? What if it feels like it's in the 60,

927
01:13:47.480 --> 01:13:52.120
but really not? And then that just, just doing that on my, on my, just kind of that riff on my

928
01:13:52.120 --> 01:13:56.760
keyboard, just really throwing my fingers on, lead to another thing, you know, then, then,

929
01:13:56.760 --> 01:14:00.600
then I had like a, some bongo thing, and then just sort of forming itself, and I thought,

930
01:14:00.600 --> 01:14:04.760
then you get excited, then you start building off of it, you know, and that's how that happens,

931
01:14:04.760 --> 01:14:09.560
you know, necessarily always have a theme that pops at your head. Sometimes you do. Here's a score

932
01:14:09.560 --> 01:14:15.000
that I think is one of the best scores that certainly no one has heard. Good by lover. Roll and

933
01:14:15.000 --> 01:14:21.560
Jaffee who directed the mission, the mission and killing fields, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he directed

934
01:14:21.560 --> 01:14:25.240
this comedy that no one understood. I got it. It was, it's really, I thought it was a really

935
01:14:25.240 --> 01:14:34.040
funny movie, but I replaced John Barry on that, on that score. And I remember I was in the theater,

936
01:14:34.040 --> 01:14:40.200
and it was watching it, and immediately the theme just went into my head. And I used before the

937
01:14:40.200 --> 01:14:43.720
time of iPhones, and recording something, so I just kept singing that theme over and over

938
01:14:43.720 --> 01:14:47.400
on my head, and I watched the films I wouldn't forget, and I went to my car, you know, and then

939
01:14:47.400 --> 01:14:52.360
called, called my the answer machine, and then saying it in, because sometimes that happens,

940
01:14:52.360 --> 01:14:57.880
sometimes that doesn't. It happened with mom, one of my favorite themes, which is the silver

941
01:14:57.880 --> 01:15:03.800
surfer theme, rise the silver surfer, and I was in a plane, and that just came into my head.

942
01:15:03.800 --> 01:15:08.760
So sometimes it happens, and sometimes a lot of times you just kind of, you know, through discovery,

943
01:15:08.760 --> 01:15:12.040
you know. Yeah, I remember the nice guys, there wasn't nice guys,

944
01:15:12.040 --> 01:15:15.800
theme, wasn't that just whistled into your phone, your iPhone, as well. Yeah, that was

945
01:15:15.800 --> 01:15:23.000
into a takeer porter, typical. Because Joel had said, look, I want you to do like that

946
01:15:23.000 --> 01:15:29.480
kitschy, you know, retro thing you did for Kiske's Bang Bang, and I'm, you know, and I want you to do

947
01:15:29.480 --> 01:15:35.000
something like, he mentioned some movie. I forgot what it was. I didn't do it exactly that,

948
01:15:35.080 --> 01:15:39.640
but it inspired me. So then every morning, I'd wake up, and I would be singing things that

949
01:15:39.640 --> 01:15:43.640
came to me, or before bed, and then listen to the next day, you're like, oh, that sucks. What was

950
01:15:43.640 --> 01:15:48.440
I thinking? But then you, that I kept kind of all these, all these ideas, I was, I was

951
01:15:48.440 --> 01:15:55.640
humming into my, my phone, and then bass lights organized them in my studio. And, you know,

952
01:15:56.600 --> 01:16:02.520
came with the A and the B part of the theme, and yeah, that's a fun one. I'm too, it's too bad they

953
01:16:02.520 --> 01:16:07.880
didn't animate to do a title sequence to that, to that theme, unfortunately, you know, really,

954
01:16:07.880 --> 01:16:12.600
you kind of get wind of the theme as the film was along, but you don't really know establishment

955
01:16:12.600 --> 01:16:17.000
of it in the film, you know. For sure, for sure. So that's all the organic process of

956
01:16:17.000 --> 01:16:20.360
something of a theme just emerging. That was the same thing with X-Men, I'm guessing. It was just

957
01:16:20.360 --> 01:16:25.960
that it just came out organically as you were working. Yeah, yeah, it did. And really, but the

958
01:16:25.960 --> 01:16:32.360
pastiche of Cayman's thing influenced me, because it was, it's a very similar kind of, you know,

959
01:16:33.400 --> 01:16:41.320
tonality, but mine, I think, was just more driving and more accessible. You could, you could,

960
01:16:41.320 --> 01:16:45.720
you could recognize a thematic thing right away, you know, which I wanted, you know. Because,

961
01:16:45.720 --> 01:16:50.280
even that film, even though it's an older film, there's not a lot of time to play your theme,

962
01:16:50.280 --> 01:16:54.440
you know, and I remember, you know, after I wrote that whole theme, like, where can I stick it?

963
01:16:54.440 --> 01:16:58.760
There's nowhere to put it, you know, it's like, you know, stormed as a thing in this church,

964
01:16:58.760 --> 01:17:03.000
and like, just all I can do is go, I don't know, and that's it, you know, it's like, it's just your

965
01:17:03.000 --> 01:17:08.600
pride. So, yeah, it's really a shame that you try to find places for it to work, but.

966
01:17:09.400 --> 01:17:12.840
But, well, but, but you did, because I mean, the theme stuck. And for me, it's like, I say, it's

967
01:17:12.840 --> 01:17:17.240
one of my favorite themes of yours. And, and also, I must say, like, you've, you've kind of,

968
01:17:17.240 --> 01:17:21.160
and I mean, this in the best possible, completely way, like, you've ruined the 20th Century Fox

969
01:17:21.160 --> 01:17:25.960
Fanfare for me now, because every time I see that Fox Fanfare, and that ever since you do that

970
01:17:25.960 --> 01:17:31.320
little sting of the, the, the, the end, even if it's not an extra movie, I can watch like a Fox

971
01:17:31.320 --> 01:17:34.920
movie Star Wars movie. It's funny. I understand. And it's in the head. It's in the head. It's in the head.

972
01:17:34.920 --> 01:17:41.880
Well, funny enough, I did that on X-Men 2. And then the memo, the memos went around, and everyone

973
01:17:41.880 --> 01:17:46.600
freaked out and we hadn't took it out. So it would have been on there since then. So then on

974
01:17:46.600 --> 01:17:51.560
X-Men Things Switch passed, I revisited the idea when there was more good will towards that theme

975
01:17:51.560 --> 01:17:56.040
and stuff. And I'm like, I just, let me do this, you know, and the memos went around again. They

976
01:17:56.040 --> 01:18:01.960
go, okay, because I brought up different examples of how people have fucked with the type, with

977
01:18:01.960 --> 01:18:05.800
20th Century Fox logo before, because like, that was their case. Well, you can't, you know, you can't

978
01:18:05.800 --> 01:18:09.320
screw it. Like, oh, well, it has been, look at Alien. I think there was an Alien movie that did

979
01:18:09.320 --> 01:18:14.120
something with or something. So they go, all right. So then we did it. Yeah. So that was well,

980
01:18:14.120 --> 01:18:18.440
that fun. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and I think the Simpsons movie as well did it as well. And then

981
01:18:18.440 --> 01:18:22.440
like, so there are, there are, it's so instances where they're like, okay, fine, you can do it.

982
01:18:23.480 --> 01:18:28.440
No, we're not. Yeah. Why not? But ever since then, like every 20th Century Fox movie, every time

983
01:18:28.440 --> 01:18:32.600
I see that theme, I just get that little motif at the end, in my head. It's in there. It's in there.

984
01:18:32.600 --> 01:18:37.880
That's the way it should be, right? You know, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and zeroing in on your,

985
01:18:37.880 --> 01:18:41.480
on sort of going from composer to editing then, I mean, because like we were saying about the

986
01:18:41.480 --> 01:18:45.080
lineups in usual suspects, you've cut so many great films and you've worked, cut so many great

987
01:18:45.080 --> 01:18:49.640
scenes. I mean, one of my favorite scenes from X2 is the opening, the night crawlers attack on

988
01:18:49.640 --> 01:18:53.960
the White House, which for me kind of raised, when I'm watching that back, like for me, you think

989
01:18:53.960 --> 01:18:58.600
of the time of the genre exploding at that time, like it kind of, for me, it raises the bar for

990
01:18:58.600 --> 01:19:04.440
light superhero action in cinema, you know, which only, you know, for, of that time, it raised the bar.

991
01:19:04.440 --> 01:19:08.040
And like, what, do you remember the cutting of that scene? Yeah. Well, it's funny. You say,

992
01:19:08.040 --> 01:19:12.840
raised the bar because, well, yeah, I remember the cutting of it, you know, it was basically working

993
01:19:12.840 --> 01:19:18.360
with the second director of the whole time and, you know, and kids, all bunch of beats that were,

994
01:19:18.360 --> 01:19:23.400
that were pre-visged, you know, storyboarded out and so forth. And the second director did all that

995
01:19:23.400 --> 01:19:28.440
stuff with exception, when we finally get into the oval office with the little moment of night

996
01:19:28.440 --> 01:19:30.760
crawler, I think Brian's painting for that. But, you know, these are things that second

997
01:19:30.760 --> 01:19:37.400
director designs and does. Brian Smurz, an amazing guy. But when you say elevated, it was,

998
01:19:37.400 --> 01:19:43.000
it was, I kept tempering it with different film action cues and another cue, another cue,

999
01:19:43.000 --> 01:19:47.240
try to do the tasteful, but cool action cues. And it just every time it felt like

1000
01:19:47.800 --> 01:19:52.760
your typical action scene, you know, it just felt like, okay, I've seen this before. You know,

1001
01:19:52.760 --> 01:19:57.320
why, how can I make this more special? Then I just thought, well, in the pre-vis, actually,

1002
01:19:57.400 --> 01:20:01.960
we had used some, we had used some classical music. And so I said, what if I just did like a

1003
01:20:03.000 --> 01:20:09.880
militaristic version of Mozart's Requiem, you know, and Anneville's and Snares, and that just,

1004
01:20:09.880 --> 01:20:15.560
it's, it's just completely transformed. That's, that's an example of how music can literally

1005
01:20:15.560 --> 01:20:20.680
transform a sequence and it's something, like you said, that's, that's now beyond what you're

1006
01:20:20.680 --> 01:20:26.360
watching. It had this classic feel to it now, not because of classical music, but I'm going to

1007
01:20:26.360 --> 01:20:31.480
clap and film classic feel, you know, and so that's the example of really transformation of

1008
01:20:31.480 --> 01:20:38.440
based upon a musical idea. Yeah. Same with the individual suspects. You know, I had, I had, I had

1009
01:20:38.440 --> 01:20:44.120
attempted the movie with getaway music when verbal is, was running away. And it was just a failure.

1010
01:20:44.120 --> 01:20:50.520
I mean, you felt nothing and it's like, why is it not working? You know, and, and we were really

1011
01:20:50.520 --> 01:20:54.600
depressed about it because, okay, this is the end of the movie. This is supposed to be the big

1012
01:20:54.600 --> 01:21:00.360
twist and it just feels flat. And then I realized, no, need to feel good. He's leaving. He's,

1013
01:21:00.360 --> 01:21:05.000
he's, you fork and some weird way. And so that's why I put in, I attempt it with this sympathy,

1014
01:21:05.000 --> 01:21:11.400
carnival, the animals by St. Solomon, you know, and, um, and I didn't tell Brian that I was going

1015
01:21:11.400 --> 01:21:15.800
to do it. And, um, then I also did the whole audio montage of all the things that have been said

1016
01:21:15.800 --> 01:21:21.800
of the film. The real montage and that scene isn't visual. It's, it's audio. It's what I took all

1017
01:21:21.800 --> 01:21:26.840
the different takes of what Virgil had said to Cuyon and it's been then creating this audio motif

1018
01:21:26.840 --> 01:21:32.520
of Cuyon saying convinced me, convinced me, convinced me. You know, and that was, that's the montage

1019
01:21:32.520 --> 01:21:37.800
you're feeling, not the visuals. Uh, so I put that with the carnival of the, uh, the animals music

1020
01:21:37.800 --> 01:21:43.000
and Brian saw that and, and we screened in a little, in the theater and use its front row. He left

1021
01:21:43.000 --> 01:21:46.520
that of a seat and turned around and he goes, whatever that is, rip that off, you know, and he goes,

1022
01:21:46.520 --> 01:21:50.360
oh my god, it works. You know, it's amazing. That transformed the whole sequence that was the

1023
01:21:50.440 --> 01:21:55.560
audio montage, cluster music, um, makes that sequence work. Gotcha. Yeah. And when, and when,

1024
01:21:55.560 --> 01:21:58.840
and when that happens, when you have like a piece of music in there, which, and you know that there's

1025
01:21:58.840 --> 01:22:03.480
a shift in like, okay, how the scene comes, it comes together on the screen. I mean, uh, when it comes

1026
01:22:03.480 --> 01:22:06.520
to you as an editor, then on something like the nightcrawler attack on the White House like,

1027
01:22:06.520 --> 01:22:10.120
does that, does the editing just become so much, why happens to the editing then? Does it just

1028
01:22:10.120 --> 01:22:17.160
become so much smoother? Um, well, I mean, the editing was already done. I, I did this after the

1029
01:22:17.160 --> 01:22:22.360
edit. Ah, right. You know, I might have made, I might have made some adjustments based upon the,

1030
01:22:22.360 --> 01:22:28.680
the Mozart cue I put in there. I can't remember. Um, but uh, no, I mean, I, I, I, everyone thinks that

1031
01:22:28.680 --> 01:22:32.600
what I'm, what I'm editing and scoring a film, I'm kind of doing both the same time. I, I, I

1032
01:22:32.600 --> 01:22:38.520
have one hat on and then I put the other hat on basically. Um, and when the other hat comes on,

1033
01:22:38.520 --> 01:22:43.400
you know, and I bring the, uh, the movie to my studio at the house, I'm starting to score it.

1034
01:22:43.400 --> 01:22:47.800
Sometimes I, I have these epiphany, so now I'm seeing the movie in a, in a, in a different light

1035
01:22:47.800 --> 01:22:52.360
all of a sudden for some reason. You know, um, that happens all the way to the dub stage. You can,

1036
01:22:52.360 --> 01:22:57.320
I mean, even with Michael Jackson movie, it's like, no matter how many times you watch the

1037
01:22:57.320 --> 01:23:01.320
editor room, no matter how many times you watch it in a screening room, then you get to the dub.

1038
01:23:02.280 --> 01:23:06.760
And for some reason, you just, these things don't on you that you've never seen it in this light

1039
01:23:06.760 --> 01:23:11.320
before. And I would go back to the editor room and start making, uh, editorial changes on the,

1040
01:23:11.320 --> 01:23:16.520
well, we're on the dub stage, which normally on a film would be no big deal. Now on Michael,

1041
01:23:16.520 --> 01:23:21.720
it's a big deal because every fricking shot is a visual effect shot. So every time I made a

1042
01:23:21.720 --> 01:23:28.760
slighted it to change, it was $9,000 for the nose. Um, Joe's eyes, we had redone because he was

1043
01:23:28.760 --> 01:23:33.240
wearing his contacts that looked strange. Every shot of him is a visual effect shot. And then,

1044
01:23:33.240 --> 01:23:38.840
and then Miles Teller's hair was redone in some scenes digitally. And so it was almost nothing

1045
01:23:38.840 --> 01:23:43.400
I could do. It wouldn't incur some cost, you know? So, um, but yeah, even on that film,

1046
01:23:43.400 --> 01:23:47.560
at the last minute, I was like, oh, I got to change this, you know? And people looking at me like,

1047
01:23:47.560 --> 01:23:52.600
oh, you know, and then Graham, of course, is king of that. Graham King is like last minute,

1048
01:23:52.600 --> 01:23:57.240
like a pivoting. You know, what if we did this? I'm like, um, we're pretty mastering tomorrow.

1049
01:23:57.240 --> 01:23:59.160
Well, let's just do it, you know, I can show you.

1050
01:24:01.560 --> 01:24:04.680
All right. Last thing about editing, right? You know, like one of the key people, you know,

1051
01:24:04.680 --> 01:24:08.520
after the film, after the fact, after the films we've made, the editor decisions can, you know,

1052
01:24:08.520 --> 01:24:12.600
like millions or like thousands of dollars, you know, and like, you have so much power,

1053
01:24:12.600 --> 01:24:17.160
you know, the editor has so much power. The film doesn't, yeah, or he or she. Yeah.

1054
01:24:17.160 --> 01:24:21.160
The normer, like I said, those last thing to change is would not have cost as much as that did

1055
01:24:21.160 --> 01:24:25.960
because they're not always visual effect shots like these were, you know? You know, crazy.

1056
01:24:25.960 --> 01:24:30.120
It's a professional thing, but it came into the film as I came in late, you know, and the film

1057
01:24:30.200 --> 01:24:35.240
got together and they already went down the road of doing his nose shots. So they start redoing

1058
01:24:35.240 --> 01:24:38.840
everything, you know, and you want to roll out a shot and stuff like that, you can't because

1059
01:24:38.840 --> 01:24:42.840
it only has seven frames of handles with now it's a visual effect shot. And so it was really,

1060
01:24:43.800 --> 01:24:47.480
frustrating because then I had to find the original shot, go back in and redo the scene, you know,

1061
01:24:47.480 --> 01:24:52.120
and then they have to redo the nose shots and it was quite a, quite a crazy situation, you know,

1062
01:24:52.120 --> 01:24:56.440
normally you don't have to deal with that, you know, just especially for a biopic, why should

1063
01:24:56.440 --> 01:25:01.960
every shot be a visual effects? For sure. For sure. And I mean, speaking of visual effects and

1064
01:25:01.960 --> 01:25:07.800
sort of scale movies, like after X2, you did Superman Returns, you know, again, composer editor.

1065
01:25:07.800 --> 01:25:11.560
And that's a film that I have to ask you about because I mean, again, like there are so many

1066
01:25:11.560 --> 01:25:15.320
fantastic pieces and scenes in that film. I mean, talk about, you know, we talk about the night

1067
01:25:15.320 --> 01:25:20.760
quarter attack in X2. I mean, I guess a scene that gets zeroed in on a lot by fans is the

1068
01:25:20.760 --> 01:25:25.480
shuttle sequence, you know, Superman saves the plane from the shuttle. I mean, do you remember the

1069
01:25:25.640 --> 01:25:30.520
editing and the composing of that scene? Because that's the edit and the music is so key for that scene

1070
01:25:30.520 --> 01:25:35.240
in particular. Yeah. But again, I didn't deal with the musical after that was cut, you know,

1071
01:25:35.240 --> 01:25:42.360
attempt it with a bunch of stuff. But a lesson that comes across from that scene, the coming

1072
01:25:42.360 --> 01:25:47.320
way from that scene is that it was pre-visged, of course, which is forced to animate storyboards.

1073
01:25:47.320 --> 01:25:51.160
And when you animate the storyboards, you look at the scene, it's all very exciting, you know,

1074
01:25:51.160 --> 01:25:53.880
it's like, oh, we're just going to, we're just going to basically use these are inspiration,

1075
01:25:53.880 --> 01:25:58.680
we're going to just shoot that. So that's what was done. It was shot. But you forget when you

1076
01:25:58.680 --> 01:26:03.480
watch something like that is the human factor is missing. So we'll cut that whole thing together

1077
01:26:03.480 --> 01:26:08.440
and it's like, I don't feel any peril inside. I mean, the cut of these were almost none inside

1078
01:26:08.440 --> 01:26:12.200
the plane and what's what what the impact is when a plane does something like that, you know,

1079
01:26:12.200 --> 01:26:17.080
people go like that, you know, and so we went back and shot a bunch of stuff inside the plane

1080
01:26:17.080 --> 01:26:22.200
because it just wasn't working. You know, we, again, we've got to be in that horse where you

1081
01:26:22.200 --> 01:26:26.600
forget about the human factor is what really people find exciting. It's not the, it's not the

1082
01:26:26.600 --> 01:26:32.040
plane shit. It's the, the people inside of what's doing to them. So that really transformed the

1083
01:26:32.040 --> 01:26:37.080
sequence and then, and then laid down the road at the agony of trying to outdo my temp score,

1084
01:26:37.080 --> 01:26:41.480
which is always the worst because I create the most amazing temp score from all these different,

1085
01:26:41.480 --> 01:26:45.880
the best parts of the best scores you could work for this moment, you know, that's like, you know,

1086
01:26:45.880 --> 01:26:50.360
and that was a really hard cue for the orchestra to get through. And so it's so frenetic and fast

1087
01:26:50.360 --> 01:26:54.920
moving and changing times of teachers all over the place and and hits and so we reported that

1088
01:26:54.920 --> 01:27:00.600
cue in sections because I think it's a really long cue. Yeah, it's an epic one. And the scene,

1089
01:27:00.600 --> 01:27:04.600
I'm so glad you mentioned the sort of the human factor in that scene because it's something that I

1090
01:27:04.600 --> 01:27:08.520
wanted to bring up because if you didn't see from the people inside the plane's perspective of what's

1091
01:27:08.520 --> 01:27:11.480
going on with Superman trying to say the plane, you wouldn't feel it in the same way. I mean,

1092
01:27:11.480 --> 01:27:18.040
my two favorite shots, I think in the in the sequence are the shot. I think it's a POV shot. You see

1093
01:27:18.040 --> 01:27:21.560
like a random woman inside the plane, she looks out and she sees Superman on the wing of the plane

1094
01:27:21.560 --> 01:27:25.800
and then you cut you cut to the exterior and you see and you see her expression as she sees

1095
01:27:25.800 --> 01:27:30.280
what's happening. And then my favorite shot of the sequence is is like a two second shot and it's

1096
01:27:30.280 --> 01:27:34.120
almost you can almost blink and you miss it, but it's a shot of a think of the woman who is the sort

1097
01:27:34.120 --> 01:27:38.360
of the the lecturer of the of you know, to the journalist, the director of something. And there's

1098
01:27:38.360 --> 01:27:42.920
a two second shot of her praying as this plane's going down. And like I don't know if you remember

1099
01:27:42.920 --> 01:27:46.600
what you can tell me about the cutting in a bat shot, but that's the shot where every time I see

1100
01:27:46.600 --> 01:27:51.320
that movie and I see it like my my investment and my blood pressure like skyrocket. I'm not being

1101
01:27:51.320 --> 01:27:55.480
as it sounds hyperbolic, but honestly like you know, it's such a brilliantly, those elements

1102
01:27:55.480 --> 01:27:59.800
punctuated are so brilliantly put together. I mean what film was just downhill from there?

1103
01:28:03.400 --> 01:28:08.360
I mean that that scene should have been the opening of the movie. The problem is we would have

1104
01:28:08.360 --> 01:28:12.280
run out of story. We would we I mean when it was scripted that that should have been the first

1105
01:28:12.280 --> 01:28:18.920
thing and then then fill with more story. I don't know, it just yeah, as you know, it also used

1106
01:28:18.920 --> 01:28:26.280
to start out with like a six minute sequence of him traveling from Krypton and and all this

1107
01:28:26.280 --> 01:28:31.800
stuff. It was beautiful and visually stunning, but it's so boring. You know, and so we we

1108
01:28:31.800 --> 01:28:37.240
were sitting in the screen and Brian and I and and and Brian was like, do you have a known

1109
01:28:37.320 --> 01:28:43.320
set of word for 45 minutes and this movie is true. I mean with the the journey from Krypton to him

1110
01:28:43.320 --> 01:28:49.720
landing and Martha coming out. I mean it was like wow, you know, so so that's that I had this idea

1111
01:28:49.720 --> 01:28:56.440
starting with with Lex Luthor, you know, the film and but you know, I think there was a there was

1112
01:28:56.440 --> 01:29:02.040
a script there where we could have started with the jet, you know, I think so. I mean you always

1113
01:29:02.040 --> 01:29:07.160
start with an action scene, you know, in these kind of movies, you know, and and then Luke,

1114
01:29:07.160 --> 01:29:11.400
the Lex Luthor thing really wasn't an action scene. It was sort of a plot thing like, oh,

1115
01:29:11.400 --> 01:29:14.600
here's the bad guy. We're introducing him. We're going to come back. There's a plot of foot.

1116
01:29:14.600 --> 01:29:19.720
Okay, that's good because that wasn't there at all. And that was my 11th hour piphany.

1117
01:29:20.440 --> 01:29:26.520
Literally maybe three weeks before our dub. I thought that idea to rearrange it so we can start

1118
01:29:26.520 --> 01:29:31.960
some clock ticking with a bad guy. I mean it did change it. It helped a lot, but but in retrospect

1119
01:29:31.960 --> 01:29:37.400
after that, like shit, we've just gone, anyway, retrospect, you know, but, you know,

1120
01:29:38.600 --> 01:29:42.360
well, it sounds like quiet. It was there quite a lot of rearranging then of the movie The Pieces

1121
01:29:42.360 --> 01:29:46.040
and like, okay, this comes to us. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then the 11th hour shooting all this stuff,

1122
01:29:46.040 --> 01:29:51.480
going back to Australia, shooting all this stuff of him, you know, saving different people

1123
01:29:52.360 --> 01:29:58.040
in Metropolis and so forth. And I didn't even know how they got those visual effects at

1124
01:29:58.040 --> 01:30:03.400
the time because we really sat down and I came up with ideas with the previous artists and

1125
01:30:03.400 --> 01:30:07.720
like flying on the seat of our pants, where we got to shoot like a week, you know, and

1126
01:30:07.720 --> 01:30:11.000
probably heads up know what they're doing. And here's the things you have to do. He could say,

1127
01:30:11.000 --> 01:30:14.520
this person by doing this and what if he does this with the manhole covers? Okay, you know,

1128
01:30:14.520 --> 01:30:19.240
and they just basis somehow shit all that out and it looked pretty good, you know, I don't know

1129
01:30:19.320 --> 01:30:23.800
how they did it so fast, you know, let's just say there was vodka bottles rolling around the halls,

1130
01:30:23.800 --> 01:30:31.400
you know, and a lot of cigarettes being smoked. You're trapped. Yeah. Yeah. And but that

1131
01:30:31.400 --> 01:30:35.480
shuttle scene, as I say, like, the human factor is so important. And I went and do you remember

1132
01:30:35.480 --> 01:30:38.840
like when you were editing that scene and putting it together? And I guess the scoring process as

1133
01:30:38.840 --> 01:30:44.760
well a bit. But like, we were you sort of pushing for those human shots in, like, we used all

1134
01:30:44.760 --> 01:30:48.840
of having to fight. I said that this does not going to work unless we go shoot some stuff.

1135
01:30:48.840 --> 01:30:53.560
So then I can't remember. I must have gotten together the previous guys and come together with

1136
01:30:53.560 --> 01:30:58.600
a bunch of beats shoot. So they went off with Chaffa's. Yeah. Yeah, like the stuff of her praying and

1137
01:30:58.600 --> 01:31:03.320
like the POV shots. Well, not like that. I'm lowest lane being flying across the cat and all the

1138
01:31:03.320 --> 01:31:07.000
stuff. And that stuff wasn't shot, you know, there was like just a few beats here and there.

1139
01:31:07.000 --> 01:31:09.800
And it's like you're like, it just, it's unsatisfying, you know,

1140
01:31:10.680 --> 01:31:14.280
but it works. I mean, it all comes off. I mean, it's an incredible sequence. And the movie, you know,

1141
01:31:14.360 --> 01:31:18.360
has fantastic stuff in it. And I mean, because as you say, you know, when you came onto X-Men,

1142
01:31:18.360 --> 01:31:21.800
you weren't really a comic book guy. When you came onto the Human Rhapsody, you weren't really

1143
01:31:21.800 --> 01:31:26.200
a queen guy. I mean, when you came onto Superman, were you a Superman guy? Was that not really the,

1144
01:31:26.200 --> 01:31:31.720
you know, yes. I mean, to me, Superman 1978 is one of the best films ever made. It's a masterpiece.

1145
01:31:32.760 --> 01:31:40.920
And I, I can't go on enough about that film. So I knew about Superman from that from that film.

1146
01:31:40.920 --> 01:31:45.400
I didn't quite evenly watch the one in the fifties, you know. And I think that's one of the

1147
01:31:45.400 --> 01:31:52.440
problems with Superman Returns is that we was so trying to be so reverential to the 78 version.

1148
01:31:52.440 --> 01:32:00.040
It was crippled to go in a new direction. At the same time, I like that fact that it stayed true

1149
01:32:00.040 --> 01:32:05.800
to, you know, the feeling that Superman should have. He should be a very positive,

1150
01:32:05.800 --> 01:32:12.520
good force and so forth. And when those dark, those dark ones that came, came later, I was like,

1151
01:32:12.520 --> 01:32:17.960
what is this garbage, you know, and so enough that ours was great. It's like ours was very flawed

1152
01:32:17.960 --> 01:32:23.320
as well. It was a beautiful film. I think it was beautifully done. I just think the plot by

1153
01:32:23.320 --> 01:32:30.600
Lex Luthor was derivative of, you know, before I think what's her face? The play to sidekick.

1154
01:32:31.560 --> 01:32:37.960
Park Posey. She had nothing to do, you know. I remember she came out of the room when she goes,

1155
01:32:37.960 --> 01:32:41.320
I'm like, I'm going to be okay. Is this going to be, I'm like, oh yeah, I hope you're here.

1156
01:32:41.320 --> 01:32:44.920
But it's like, I knew she didn't have much to do for, you know, and she just sits around looking

1157
01:32:44.920 --> 01:32:50.200
depressed with her little dog. And so there was something very off about the plot. But, but then again,

1158
01:32:50.200 --> 01:32:53.960
I'm very proud of the work on the film. It's very, it's very beautifully done movie, you know.

1159
01:32:53.960 --> 01:33:01.240
You know, I thought Kate Bosworth was fantastic, but she was miscast. I thought that lowest

1160
01:33:01.240 --> 01:33:06.440
lay enough that everyone has to be Margot Kitter. She had to be more endearing and, you know, laugh,

1161
01:33:06.440 --> 01:33:11.800
we need to laugh with her at least once, you know, or something. And she was so hard hitting reporter

1162
01:33:11.800 --> 01:33:15.960
with a Pulitzer at like what 12, you know, it just didn't, I didn't buy it. And the funny thing is,

1163
01:33:15.960 --> 01:33:21.000
we were so concerned about Brandon. How do we, Brandon, Brandon, pulling it off, Brandon pulling

1164
01:33:21.560 --> 01:33:25.720
the whole time. It was really, it was really her character. It was the problem, I think.

1165
01:33:26.440 --> 01:33:30.360
Now she's not just she was bad. She was excellent in the film. She's, she's a really good actress.

1166
01:33:31.400 --> 01:33:36.200
Fantastic actress. I just, I felt she was miscast, you know, or she was miswritten or something.

1167
01:33:37.000 --> 01:33:42.440
It wasn't her fault. And so, so all along, it really wasn't Brandon. That was the worry of,

1168
01:33:42.440 --> 01:33:47.000
we shouldn't have been the worry of ours. It was that role, I think. I think they would have had

1169
01:33:47.000 --> 01:33:54.840
a more fun relationship. Had should be a little more endearing in a way, you know, but still,

1170
01:33:54.840 --> 01:33:59.720
you know, I, you know, I, I, I, I fusted my ass on that thing. And like I said, there are

1171
01:33:59.720 --> 01:34:06.600
sequences I'm super proud of musically and rhetorially and everything. But as a whole, I think,

1172
01:34:07.240 --> 01:34:12.280
I don't know, I think it was a story. And, you know, and frankly, let's put it, let's face it.

1173
01:34:12.280 --> 01:34:18.520
We all love the Superman theme, which I made sure that was a very present motif through that film.

1174
01:34:19.640 --> 01:34:25.240
But we didn't need that opening title sequence like that. It just, it just bogged it down. I mean,

1175
01:34:25.240 --> 01:34:30.840
especially when we used to have title sequence going to Krypton, going with any crashes,

1176
01:34:30.840 --> 01:34:37.000
Martha discovers him in an hour later, we finally get the plot going, you know, I really felt

1177
01:34:37.000 --> 01:34:42.600
they should have been, you know, and I'm a treasualist. I love title sequences. I live for that.

1178
01:34:42.600 --> 01:34:45.960
Sometimes it's the only one to see is the title sequence. But in this one, I felt like it should have

1179
01:34:45.960 --> 01:34:50.920
been done, done, done, done, done, done, done. That's it. That's the whole title sequence.

1180
01:34:50.920 --> 01:34:55.640
So it's in and into the movie. But there was a lot of pushback. I wouldn't want to see their name

1181
01:34:55.640 --> 01:35:01.960
fly across, you know, and I'm like, okay, but it's just like, yeah, anyway, but I lost the

1182
01:35:01.960 --> 01:35:06.760
one. Well, it sounds like there was quite a lot of, there was a lot of different ideas coming in

1183
01:35:06.760 --> 01:35:10.600
by the sounds of it, a lot of different opinions, all of them always are. They always are. Yeah.

1184
01:35:10.600 --> 01:35:14.760
I mean, we've Superman as well because it was, you know, it was, it was, it's hard to do, I remember

1185
01:35:14.760 --> 01:35:19.880
when I watched the back, you know, recently, it's hard to do like a sort of ode to Donna and Reeve

1186
01:35:19.880 --> 01:35:24.760
in the sort of 21st century. I mean, so much had happened, you know, it's a very difficult

1187
01:35:24.760 --> 01:35:28.040
thing to do. And it was very, very admirable. As I said, like, there are some beautiful,

1188
01:35:28.120 --> 01:35:31.400
they're like, you know, we all love the John Williams theme, as you know, as you say. And like,

1189
01:35:31.400 --> 01:35:34.680
you know, and the theory in there was fantastic. I mean, even we actually had John Murphy on

1190
01:35:34.680 --> 01:35:39.640
the podcast recently, composer who did James Gunn, Superman, and he was talking about integrating

1191
01:35:39.640 --> 01:35:43.560
the Williams theme. It's kind of something that it's, it's ever-present, isn't it, when it comes to

1192
01:35:43.560 --> 01:35:49.000
Superman, you know? Well, yeah, I mean, I guess it doesn't have to be, but again, that's such a

1193
01:35:49.000 --> 01:35:55.400
seminal movie, the 78 version, that it's almost like sacrilegious to go away from it. You know,

1194
01:35:55.400 --> 01:36:00.040
and frankly, I mean, I didn't really, all I had to do was go, ta-ta-na, once in a while, and it's

1195
01:36:00.040 --> 01:36:04.600
like, that's it. You know, I mean, 95% of the score was a complete original, but it's like,

1196
01:36:05.480 --> 01:36:10.840
it's that little nod, you know, that's, that's fun, you know? I mean, another great cue, I mean,

1197
01:36:10.840 --> 01:36:14.280
this is not super related, but another great cue that I wanted to bring up with you is,

1198
01:36:14.280 --> 01:36:18.440
which is actually another X-Men cue you did is, is Hope, you know, Xavier Seymour for days,

1199
01:36:18.440 --> 01:36:23.880
Future Palace, which is a beautiful piece. Yeah, I mean, that's it. You never, didn't have a theme,

1200
01:36:23.880 --> 01:36:28.600
and Xavier never had a theme in the movies, and it's like, it wasn't appropriate before,

1201
01:36:28.600 --> 01:36:32.680
because there was, you know, it depends on the film, the time, the time given to the character,

1202
01:36:32.680 --> 01:36:38.360
and what the movie's about. And it wouldn't make sense in X-Men 2 to try to shove in an Xavier theme,

1203
01:36:38.360 --> 01:36:42.040
but just wouldn't, it wouldn't work. You have to choose your, your, your moments. And so,

1204
01:36:42.040 --> 01:36:46.680
in this one, like, oh, this is all bad Xavier, and he has no theme. So, yeah, so that was,

1205
01:36:46.840 --> 01:36:54.920
yeah, that's, that's, that's one of my favorites, yeah. It's kind of, it was a sad theme, but

1206
01:36:56.360 --> 01:36:59.880
I always talk one time that all my music has a tinge of sad is to it, you're like, you're all right,

1207
01:36:59.880 --> 01:37:04.280
well, I don't know what that means, but... Well, it's a, yeah, it's a beautiful piece. I remember

1208
01:37:04.280 --> 01:37:08.840
hearing it when the movie came out, I mean, really, like, you know, it's a very, it's very quietly

1209
01:37:08.840 --> 01:37:12.120
profound. I mean, do you remember, like, as with, like, the X-2 theme, and do you remember the

1210
01:37:12.120 --> 01:37:17.960
germination for that one, like, you know, how that starts. Yeah, I was just a scene in his bedroom

1211
01:37:17.960 --> 01:37:23.320
when he is all drugged out in the press or something, and, and, and I just sort of,

1212
01:37:26.120 --> 01:37:35.000
just came up with that. I mean, just came out. I think I had like, electric keyboard sound,

1213
01:37:35.080 --> 01:37:42.600
you know, and that's where it started, is that scene, which makes sense, you know. It's not,

1214
01:37:42.600 --> 01:37:48.200
it's not, it's, it wasn't a moment where I before the film, before I started the movie, I came

1215
01:37:48.200 --> 01:37:53.400
up with a theme for him. It was really, and that's when I was scoring that scene, I realized, oh,

1216
01:37:54.280 --> 01:37:59.320
this is the perfect moment for a theme for him, and, and so then I kind of carried through

1217
01:37:59.320 --> 01:38:05.480
to the other scenes, and then, and then had that, that, that big piece done just for the film, you know.

1218
01:38:06.760 --> 01:38:09.720
Yeah. My, my kind of, like, Zimmeresque kind of version of it, you know,

1219
01:38:12.520 --> 01:38:18.440
that the epic kind of, yeah, yeah. Well, it's like you were saying about X-Men, like, you were saying

1220
01:38:18.440 --> 01:38:21.800
like X-2, you were saying, where do I work in the theme, like, you know, was storm in the church,

1221
01:38:21.800 --> 01:38:25.320
but then I guess in days when you passed it was just immediate, like, oh, this theme can go

1222
01:38:25.320 --> 01:38:30.360
here and can go here, and it can feed organically in. Yeah. But again, again, right, well,

1223
01:38:31.080 --> 01:38:35.240
right now, it seems like I had a time to say my ass, because like, when I went into, you know,

1224
01:38:35.240 --> 01:38:41.240
this long thing in the, in the, what do you call it, the conversion chamber, where, where

1225
01:38:41.320 --> 01:38:55.560
strikers waiting for, for a Logan, you know, it's that, you know, it's just a minor thing,

1226
01:38:55.560 --> 01:39:01.400
and, um, I wanted to, that scene, that theme, which floated me through that, that sequence,

1227
01:39:01.400 --> 01:39:06.360
because I had pre-written it, and it just worked like a beautiful glow, that had, that turned into

1228
01:39:06.360 --> 01:39:12.040
the theme to, um, that, that, what's the X-Men film of the young guys, the, the, the,

1229
01:39:12.040 --> 01:39:16.040
the, oh, first class, first class. It turned into the theme of first, it turned into, no, it turned

1230
01:39:16.040 --> 01:39:21.400
into Magneto's theme, or, or the theme, yeah, for first class, I'm like, what is, so then,

1231
01:39:21.400 --> 01:39:25.160
everyone got used to that, and to me, it's like, well, that doesn't make sense, because it's

1232
01:39:25.160 --> 01:39:28.920
the theme to Wolverine, you know, it's like, it's, it's, it's Wolverine's theme, and so, then I,

1233
01:39:29.800 --> 01:39:35.080
so then when we did, um, then when we did, um, Day's Reacher Pass, I was like,

1234
01:39:35.080 --> 01:39:40.200
fuck that, and I'm not going to use that theme for Magneto, um, because that's Wolverine's theme,

1235
01:39:40.200 --> 01:39:45.160
and so I, I, I, I put it back, you know, I'm supposed to, they'll put the world back the way

1236
01:39:45.160 --> 01:39:50.360
you're supposed to be, in my opinion, so. And again, this is the great thing about your career,

1237
01:39:50.360 --> 01:39:53.880
like, you know, you talk about specific cues, and then talk about specific scenes, like Day's

1238
01:39:53.880 --> 01:39:58.360
Future Pass, like, you know, again, fantastic array of just brilliantly put together scenes and

1239
01:39:58.360 --> 01:40:03.240
sequences, I mean, I think the one that, the fan favorite is the quick silver pentagon scene,

1240
01:40:03.240 --> 01:40:07.560
which, you know, is just such a set that way. That was just on time and a bottle, yeah, but,

1241
01:40:07.560 --> 01:40:10.440
I mean, do you remember the cutting of that? Do you remember the process of cutting that one?

1242
01:40:10.440 --> 01:40:15.000
Well, fuck yeah, I mean, they're super complicated, you know, hemorrhage, brain inducing, but,

1243
01:40:15.000 --> 01:40:20.600
but, you know, again, no, but it was painstakingly, uh, uh, uh, previst out, you know, but even so,

1244
01:40:20.600 --> 01:40:26.280
the previst has always worked according to plan, um, you know, and you, you change things

1245
01:40:26.280 --> 01:40:33.560
editorially and, and, uh, but, you know, um, but, you know, that sequence wasn't as difficult as

1246
01:40:33.560 --> 01:40:38.440
it may seem, only because it was so planned out, you know, whereas when you get like, you know,

1247
01:40:38.440 --> 01:40:42.200
bazillion feet of footage for a film, the first scene and there's no plan, you know, and it's like,

1248
01:40:42.200 --> 01:40:46.120
you got to figure out and design it. That was pretty well designed ahead of time, you know.

1249
01:40:46.760 --> 01:40:51.240
Right, so there was a much, yeah, it was just basically putting the pieces together, uh, at the time,

1250
01:40:51.240 --> 01:40:55.000
it's pretty much. That was at the case for the apocalypse sort of version of that, you know,

1251
01:40:55.160 --> 01:40:59.480
just the whole house, the whole mansion. Same thing. And I told them, anyway,

1252
01:40:59.480 --> 01:41:06.120
let's don't get me going. It's like, I read that script and I was like, dude, it's okay.

1253
01:41:06.840 --> 01:41:13.240
This isn't going to be fun for people because the other was emerging from a, from a fun

1254
01:41:13.240 --> 01:41:19.960
heist and we're already having fun. It's a prison break. Uh, this other one, um, people,

1255
01:41:20.040 --> 01:41:25.560
a guy just probably died. There's people burning and it's like, and you make this fun sequence,

1256
01:41:25.560 --> 01:41:30.200
which I, and I just felt I, I know we had to do it, but I think in the end of the day, it's not

1257
01:41:30.200 --> 01:41:33.880
going to, it's going to feel weird to people, you know, and then right after the sequence is then

1258
01:41:33.880 --> 01:41:41.000
you find out that, um, what's this phase? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it's like, uh, I knew going into it,

1259
01:41:41.000 --> 01:41:46.120
it was going to feel forced in a way. And, um, it's a cool sequence, but it just, but to be,

1260
01:41:46.120 --> 01:41:51.320
it feels forced in my opinion. Is that where your, because I know on Apocalypse, you were editor

1261
01:41:51.320 --> 01:41:55.080
composer and a, so, and producer, right? Is that where your sort of producer hat is coming on?

1262
01:41:55.080 --> 01:41:58.440
And you're like, guys, well, I mean, I was always sort of that, but I just getting credit this time,

1263
01:41:58.440 --> 01:42:03.720
but, uh, you know, um, but yeah, well, here's what happened was, and I'll just be frank,

1264
01:42:03.720 --> 01:42:11.720
it's like, on days of each of past, I did stuff that's normally not done. Okay, there's a lot

1265
01:42:11.720 --> 01:42:17.480
of faith put in me and Brian told the, um, the, uh, the live producer, you're John wants something

1266
01:42:17.480 --> 01:42:21.560
we're going to do it, because we'll save money that way. If we do it now, rather than go to LA,

1267
01:42:21.560 --> 01:42:26.120
they come back after reshoots, which are way more expensive. And there was these scenes that I'd

1268
01:42:26.120 --> 01:42:30.360
be in the middle of cutting like, you know what? The scene makes no sense. We have to go and choose

1269
01:42:30.360 --> 01:42:34.840
something else. And I would describe the scene and then Simon, the writer would, would do his

1270
01:42:34.840 --> 01:42:39.400
version of it and we go shoot it. And we did this on, it's like three scenes and they're big,

1271
01:42:39.400 --> 01:42:47.880
expensive scenes. Um, and so we did that with LA, put the film together. We hardly hardly anything

1272
01:42:47.880 --> 01:42:54.680
to do for reshoots except for doing this different rogue, rogue cut version, uh, which is the whole

1273
01:42:54.680 --> 01:42:57.480
whole thing talk about, which is like so complicated. I barely remember what happened, but wait,

1274
01:42:57.480 --> 01:43:01.640
I had to go shoot a bunch of stuff for that. Um, so then when apocalypse came, there was this

1275
01:43:01.640 --> 01:43:05.160
complacency like, well, everything's just going to work out fine. It's like last time for getting

1276
01:43:05.240 --> 01:43:11.320
how that happened. And so I was given the script and I had like pages and pages of notes because

1277
01:43:11.320 --> 01:43:17.000
it's all, it's all my self interest, right? Because I see things in a blob of my face and it's,

1278
01:43:17.000 --> 01:43:20.920
and I got to figure out how to solve them and I don't want to do that. You know, I, I, I, I,

1279
01:43:20.920 --> 01:43:26.200
I'm true for my own sanity. I can't let the script be the way it is. And oh, John, be fine,

1280
01:43:26.200 --> 01:43:31.320
be fine. It's going to be fine. Not a problem, you know? And so, um, and so then we go into

1281
01:43:31.320 --> 01:43:36.600
production and we have a film with no third act. There's no third act. It was a beach sheet.

1282
01:43:37.240 --> 01:43:42.120
It was a beach sheet. It was like, uh, so and so, uh, uh, attacks so and so and they die.

1283
01:43:42.840 --> 01:43:47.480
This person somehow escapes and, and, um, you know, and this person dies and they,

1284
01:43:47.480 --> 01:43:54.600
would they win? That's it. That was, it's a beach sheet. And, um, and so, uh, and I guess

1285
01:43:54.600 --> 01:43:58.440
that's not heard of. It's crazy, but I guess Marvel films that way too. They have no real

1286
01:43:58.440 --> 01:44:04.680
ending yet and they go just wing it. Oh, so, so, um, yeah. So the lot of the problems that I

1287
01:44:04.680 --> 01:44:09.000
thought would have happened. They exploded in my face and then along with the third acting

1288
01:44:09.000 --> 01:44:14.680
that, again, huddling with the, with the, with the, with the, with the, with the previous team

1289
01:44:14.680 --> 01:44:19.560
and the second director and just coming up with shit the last second in that final confrontation

1290
01:44:19.560 --> 01:44:23.320
battle, you know, and figuring out who dies, who goes where, you know, well, they go there,

1291
01:44:23.320 --> 01:44:28.920
then the batskin, it's always always like, um, um, um, like a Rubik's cube or something.

1292
01:44:28.920 --> 01:44:33.880
It's like, you can't have this person there because if they're there, that person would, I can't

1293
01:44:33.880 --> 01:44:39.160
explain it, but it's like, um, uh, almost an impossibility to figure out where each character is

1294
01:44:39.160 --> 01:44:44.200
going to be to make the logical sense of the whole situation, you know, um, so, yeah, but

1295
01:44:44.200 --> 01:44:51.480
it ended up coming together and repurposing scenes and, uh, thank God for, for, uh, voice over,

1296
01:44:51.640 --> 01:44:54.760
hearing people's thoughts and stuff. You could just fill in shit and, like, come up with

1297
01:44:54.760 --> 01:45:00.280
different things of Xavier sitting there and, you know, uh, this mind battle thing and, uh,

1298
01:45:00.280 --> 01:45:04.600
oh my God. So, you know, I mean, it's, I, I, I don't have really good memories sometimes that,

1299
01:45:04.600 --> 01:45:10.040
it was also to blur, but I remember it was, it was a total, total, total nightmare, um, to

1300
01:45:10.040 --> 01:45:14.600
get that thing to where it was, you know, wow, wow, as opposed to day to feature past, which,

1301
01:45:14.600 --> 01:45:18.840
which was, was that a bit smoother? Because I could solve the problems as we were going along,

1302
01:45:18.840 --> 01:45:22.520
but there was such complacency, well, they forgot that we, that's the way we did it. So,

1303
01:45:22.520 --> 01:45:28.280
well, we'll just, we'll just, you know, it'll all work out, you know, so, you know, um, it was a

1304
01:45:28.280 --> 01:45:32.280
problem, you know, the script was, I know, it's not a terrible movie, it's a good film, but, but,

1305
01:45:32.280 --> 01:45:39.000
but it's, it's, it's, it's, um, the problem, it's, it's problem, the problem for it was that it had

1306
01:45:39.000 --> 01:45:43.080
injuries all these new characters in the beginning and it really weighed it down and you, but you have

1307
01:45:43.080 --> 01:45:48.120
to introduce, introduce all those characters. So it's an obligation the film had, um, so how do you

1308
01:45:48.120 --> 01:45:51.560
get through all that in the most fun way you can and get the story started? I think

1309
01:45:52.120 --> 01:45:58.280
problem with it, you know, but I mean, do you remember when you had a build whose head looks too,

1310
01:45:58.280 --> 01:46:04.920
too big? The apocalypse is head. Oh my god, it's like Frankenstein, you know.

1311
01:46:07.000 --> 01:46:10.120
Well, Oscar Isaac has taught, because he's, he's a big expert fan, but I think he's taught

1312
01:46:10.120 --> 01:46:13.640
it over the years about how when he came on board, he was very excited and then maybe the

1313
01:46:13.640 --> 01:46:17.240
production was quite tough. It was like, you know, the apocalypse he was playing was not the

1314
01:46:17.240 --> 01:46:20.840
apocalypse. He kind of imagined he would be doing. So he's talked about difficulties. Yeah. Oh,

1315
01:46:20.840 --> 01:46:25.880
I think the cross-ness is surreal and, um, I'll leave it there. Stuff you can't make up,

1316
01:46:25.880 --> 01:46:31.000
but I'm sure that's what he's talking about. Sure, sure, sure. I mean, with days for you past

1317
01:46:31.000 --> 01:46:34.600
thing, because you mentioned there were scenes that were kind of, the you sort of visualized,

1318
01:46:34.600 --> 01:46:38.920
when you were editing, like, we need to, we need this, we need this and you went in Simon would

1319
01:46:38.920 --> 01:46:41.720
Kimberg would write them and then you would go off and shoot them. I mean, do you remember,

1320
01:46:41.720 --> 01:46:44.280
while those, and these were like big scenes, you remember what those scenes were? Well, the original

1321
01:46:44.280 --> 01:46:51.400
version of the movie was that like, the whole mission is like, we have to get, um, um,

1322
01:46:51.400 --> 01:46:59.320
mystique, uh, from ever killing trash. That's it, right? That's it. Yeah. So

1323
01:47:01.240 --> 01:47:04.760
all you got to do, which comes back to the mansion, there was a kitchen scene in the mansion,

1324
01:47:04.760 --> 01:47:08.920
which he was back to his, hi, everybody. And I'm like, wait a minute, just lock the door,

1325
01:47:08.920 --> 01:47:13.560
mission accomplished. You're done. Why is she going back to mansion? It makes no, it makes no

1326
01:47:13.560 --> 01:47:20.120
sense. So I'm cutting the scene going, the movie's over. Just lock the door. So like, we can't

1327
01:47:20.120 --> 01:47:24.600
ever have her come back to the mansion. I said, you got to should've seen where, where she's not

1328
01:47:24.600 --> 01:47:28.840
coming back and exated communicate with her in a train station. And then Simon made it into an

1329
01:47:28.840 --> 01:47:33.320
airport. And so, and so we wouldn't shot that whole thing. And there was a couple of other things

1330
01:47:33.320 --> 01:47:37.640
like that. And so in that version of the film, I mean, no sense for her to ever come back. And so

1331
01:47:37.640 --> 01:47:42.040
those are the things that we did to, to make the film work. And then, and then with the road cut,

1332
01:47:42.040 --> 01:47:45.560
of course, she ends up coming back in a different way. She ends up coming back, but they don't know,

1333
01:47:45.560 --> 01:47:48.680
but they don't know she's coming back, which is a whole different situation, which is a whole

1334
01:47:48.680 --> 01:47:52.600
different thing. She can come back and destroy cerebral. That's all cool. But the love is no

1335
01:47:52.600 --> 01:47:56.600
no she's there. Otherwise, film over. You know, so there was things like that that on this from

1336
01:47:56.600 --> 01:48:01.480
a story point, not that, not that the scene's bad, although the kitchen scene was really bad. It was

1337
01:48:01.480 --> 01:48:06.520
just on top of that. It was a horrible scene. So we, that was a, so double win, you know,

1338
01:48:06.520 --> 01:48:10.600
getting rid of the scene. But, but, but again, it's this is the, this is what the editors should do.

1339
01:48:10.600 --> 01:48:15.640
They should see things from a story point of view ago. This is never going to work ever, you know,

1340
01:48:15.640 --> 01:48:20.840
so again, it's all self preservation. It's not that I care about the movie, but I care more about

1341
01:48:20.840 --> 01:48:25.960
myself having to score fucking movie down the road. And I can't, I can't have a movie of problems

1342
01:48:25.960 --> 01:48:30.440
because I won't be able to write the score. So I was always in my self interest to solve the

1343
01:48:30.440 --> 01:48:36.600
problems navel. And that's why my, my editors kept, we're always within 10 minutes of the running

1344
01:48:36.600 --> 01:48:42.120
time because I had to cleverly know this scene's never getting in the film. I'm cutting it now.

1345
01:48:42.120 --> 01:48:46.040
And so Brian, I used to that. And so we would just, I would, my first cut, so I was very lean,

1346
01:48:46.040 --> 01:48:52.040
and that was pretty much the movie. And so the only changes we would guess to make is actually

1347
01:48:52.040 --> 01:48:55.960
saying, I think we could stand with this back or whatever. So those, we would do the opposite

1348
01:48:55.960 --> 01:49:00.520
of what we normally would do. And I just had to do that. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to

1349
01:49:00.520 --> 01:49:04.920
write the scores, you know. Yeah. And do those battles where things kind of blow up in your face,

1350
01:49:04.920 --> 01:49:09.560
like on say apocalypse and the third act of the script. I mean, with those things that have,

1351
01:49:09.560 --> 01:49:13.080
are those almost kind of systemic things that happen more and more like as down the line?

1352
01:49:13.080 --> 01:49:17.160
I guess they do. You know, I mean, I, I guess I've heard since then that that's, you know,

1353
01:49:18.200 --> 01:49:24.280
quite not unheard of, you know, I don't understand it. I'm up on a planner, you know, it's like,

1354
01:49:24.280 --> 01:49:29.080
I got to know, you know, it's like when I write a queue for a movie, I orchestrate the whole

1355
01:49:29.080 --> 01:49:33.240
thing. I got to, I wanted, I can't imagine going to the scoring stage and going, I wonder,

1356
01:49:33.240 --> 01:49:36.600
I wonder what my orchestrators did, you know, it's like, I got to know what it's going to sound like.

1357
01:49:36.600 --> 01:49:40.680
So it's the same with the, with the movie. I mean, any, I would think any editor wants to know

1358
01:49:40.680 --> 01:49:46.360
where the, where the end of the movie is going, you know. So yeah, that was, that was crazy. You

1359
01:49:46.360 --> 01:49:49.800
know, and inevitably those scenes are never going to be as good as they could have been because you're

1360
01:49:50.120 --> 01:49:54.040
just flying by the seat of your pants and coming up with stuff as fast as you can, you know.

1361
01:49:55.960 --> 01:50:04.200
But I will say, you know, I give credit what credits do, don't care. So Brian was relatively

1362
01:50:04.200 --> 01:50:09.400
uninvolved in the re-shape into the third act of the film, all the action stuff. As was kind of

1363
01:50:09.400 --> 01:50:14.520
the writer, they're kind of like, let's see what you guys come up with, pre-vis wise. So I bring

1364
01:50:14.520 --> 01:50:18.440
the whole plan into Brian's trailer. Here's what's going to happen. You know, they're going to be

1365
01:50:18.440 --> 01:50:22.600
over here. I'm the laser's going over here in the middle, you know. And, and he was kind of like,

1366
01:50:22.600 --> 01:50:28.280
okay, again, and then he goes, wait a minute, wait a minute, you know, you know, and what if, you know,

1367
01:50:29.240 --> 01:50:37.640
she just sort of like walks on air, you know, and I'm like, oh, that's fucking cool. You know,

1368
01:50:37.640 --> 01:50:43.720
and so then that inspired you kind of we're working the scene, you know, just sort of like make that

1369
01:50:43.800 --> 01:50:47.480
the big moment, you know, but so it's like, this is how the crazy shit goes on, you know.

1370
01:50:49.080 --> 01:50:52.840
It just happens at the 11th hour, you're like, oh, like you're saying Joel Silver, like Joel will

1371
01:50:52.840 --> 01:50:58.040
get an idea, like, oh, why don't we try this, you know, and then, but then as an editor, are you kind of

1372
01:50:58.040 --> 01:51:01.800
like, is that when you just the sweat starts? Because you're like, God, you know, we've got to finish

1373
01:51:01.800 --> 01:51:05.960
this on schedule and how are we going to do this? Yeah, well, normally the sweat is already there,

1374
01:51:05.960 --> 01:51:12.200
but then if I got this thing, I got to do, which is right, the score. That was my constant worry

1375
01:51:12.280 --> 01:51:18.680
and nightmares. How am I going to do that? You know, yeah, because not like to fill the stops,

1376
01:51:18.680 --> 01:51:21.560
and then when it goes, okay, it was tough, the movie now, go draw, go write your score.

1377
01:51:21.560 --> 01:51:25.640
As I write that score, all these problems are still going on. So I'm always going back

1378
01:51:25.640 --> 01:51:33.560
to work back with my studio and trying to, you know, so that I said it's so ridiculously insane

1379
01:51:33.560 --> 01:51:37.720
when I went through to do that. That's why I just had to stop after apocalypse, you know.

1380
01:51:37.800 --> 01:51:41.240
Yeah. Yeah, because I remember when I was looking back at your work, like 2016, you did

1381
01:51:41.240 --> 01:51:44.360
nice guys in the apocalypse and those were your last sort of feature film scores. Was that the

1382
01:51:44.360 --> 01:51:51.640
point where you were like, right, editing? Well, you know, it's, it's, it's tough for me because

1383
01:51:51.640 --> 01:51:58.520
I want to go be writing stuff. The same time, I don't want to be stuck in a room at 11, 12,

1384
01:51:58.520 --> 01:52:03.560
13 hours a day anymore, because that was my life for 20, 30 years, and I just don't want to do

1385
01:52:03.560 --> 01:52:09.240
that. I want to be on a cruise ship. I want to be in my swimming in my pool. As I'm, as I'm

1386
01:52:09.240 --> 01:52:13.640
maybe putting my films together as a director, it's like, I, it's so it's kind of painful in a way

1387
01:52:13.640 --> 01:52:17.160
because I want to be writing something, but I also want to, I also don't want to be.

1388
01:52:17.160 --> 01:52:21.720
Nothing you shouldn't fall back on what you've done and not go forward. I am one of my, my

1389
01:52:21.720 --> 01:52:25.080
hobby projects is going to be putting all my themes together and have the re-performed

1390
01:52:25.960 --> 01:52:29.880
biorexter on Europe and then put out an album, you know, not bringing money, making purposes,

1391
01:52:29.880 --> 01:52:37.000
just so I can have them out there because, you know, usual aesthetics was recorded illegally

1392
01:52:37.000 --> 01:52:41.960
in that little room in San Diego. And so you can't hear it on the radio. You can't hear that score

1393
01:52:41.960 --> 01:52:49.000
in Spotify because it was not legally done. So if I go record it somewhere, then it could get on

1394
01:52:49.000 --> 01:52:54.440
local stations here, like the, our classical station or, or maybe a Spotify. And so again,

1395
01:52:54.440 --> 01:52:57.880
it's just to get it out. There's people here and then there's a few scores are really on,

1396
01:52:57.880 --> 01:53:02.840
in my career that were kind of done that way. So, they're money. So I want to, you know,

1397
01:53:02.840 --> 01:53:05.800
just re-performed them so they're mine so I can get them out there, you know.

1398
01:53:06.520 --> 01:53:11.160
Absolutely. Well, that sounds fantastic. I know I did that about usual suspects that, you know,

1399
01:53:11.160 --> 01:53:14.600
it was kind of put together that way. So no, it sounds like a great culture.

1400
01:53:14.600 --> 01:53:15.800
You're calling it a score.

1401
01:53:19.240 --> 01:53:22.760
Brilliant. Well, as I guess is a sort of rapid question. Do you have any advice, I guess,

1402
01:53:22.760 --> 01:53:27.080
for someone who wants to break into editing or composing or even do both at the same time,

1403
01:53:27.080 --> 01:53:31.000
like, you know, uniquely, but I don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't do it.

1404
01:53:32.760 --> 01:53:37.480
Well, I always get this trite advice, but it's something, but it's advice sometimes that people

1405
01:53:37.480 --> 01:53:43.240
don't take, at least people I've known. It's like, basically say yes to everything at this point

1406
01:53:43.240 --> 01:53:50.120
in your career. I mean, because you never know that shittiest little stucco project that you did,

1407
01:53:50.120 --> 01:53:55.160
if you had not done it, it wouldn't have led unexpectedly to somewhere else. Or someone's

1408
01:53:55.160 --> 01:54:00.920
aunt's uncle's niece was on that project and saw your work and told their uncle who knew someone

1409
01:54:00.920 --> 01:54:06.600
else, you know, that's the way it goes. And then there's a fringe benefit that comes from it as well.

1410
01:54:06.600 --> 01:54:12.280
If you get on these crappy little projects, everyone you do, you learn more. And you teach yourself,

1411
01:54:12.280 --> 01:54:16.600
especially if it's a dog of a project, you teach yourself how to have a good attitude about,

1412
01:54:16.600 --> 01:54:20.920
I'm going to make this better. I'm going to, whatever I do on this, I'm going to,

1413
01:54:21.000 --> 01:54:25.000
I'm going to make this a lot better than it is now. At least that's what you think you're doing,

1414
01:54:25.000 --> 01:54:29.240
at least, you know, I mean, I still do that on some terrible things I get on and then I saw

1415
01:54:29.240 --> 01:54:33.480
see him a year later and like, oh, it's still sucked. But I had to convince myself I was going to

1416
01:54:33.480 --> 01:54:38.200
make the thing better. And so it makes you a person that people want to work with and it makes you

1417
01:54:38.200 --> 01:54:42.520
have that great attitude that you are going to try your best to elevate the film, you know.

1418
01:54:43.480 --> 01:54:50.440
Yeah, so just do, do, do everything, you know, go to, I mean, again, it doesn't mean,

1419
01:54:50.440 --> 01:54:55.320
if this point shouldn't matter what the project is, just do something, you know, because it will

1420
01:54:55.320 --> 01:55:01.960
unexpectedly lead somewhere else, you know. So just to dive in and be your best self and just

1421
01:55:01.960 --> 01:55:07.240
and work hard. Yeah, I mean, holding out for, oh, well, I mean, hold out for the good one that

1422
01:55:07.320 --> 01:55:12.600
comes, you know, it's like, you might hold me holding out for quite a while, you know, or, or,

1423
01:55:14.040 --> 01:55:17.720
yeah, you just got to get your feet wet and you're, you know, your hands dirty,

1424
01:55:17.720 --> 01:55:22.920
don't have an attitude. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think get your hands dirty and don't have an attitude.

1425
01:55:22.920 --> 01:55:28.440
Well, I think that's a fantastic note to end on, John. I mean, this is been an absolute pleasure,

1426
01:55:28.440 --> 01:55:32.760
honestly. This is like, you know, as I say, you know, a big, great, thank you. Thanks, man.

1427
01:55:32.760 --> 01:55:36.120
No, I mean, I've been a big family of yours for years. So it really was just such a pleasure to

1428
01:55:36.120 --> 01:55:41.880
chat to you. Well, you have great taste, I'll be great to know. I'll take that. I'll take that.

1429
01:55:41.880 --> 01:55:52.920
But no, no, thank you so much, John. This really was such a pleasure. Thank you. I appreciate it.

1430
01:55:56.120 --> 01:56:00.840
Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for listening to my chat with John Ophman. Remember to like and

1431
01:56:00.840 --> 01:56:04.680
subscribe to the podcast. See you in the next episode. As they tuned for more exciting

1432
01:56:04.680 --> 01:56:07.400
interviews and guests coming soon on half the day.