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En Castellano
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Interview With Christopher Young (Part I)
By Joaquín Ramentol, David Rodríguez Cerdán y Miguel Ángel Ordóñez |
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SM: Let’s first go back in time... In your young days you wanted to become a jazz drummer. When did you get interested in jazz and how this vocation came out?
CY: Indeed, before I was a composer I was a drummer. And why did this happen... when someone starts on an instrument you never know why it happens, why you are attracted (to) that instrument. I can´t say exactly but for long as I can remember I always had (tapping) in my head: “ta-ta-ta-ta-taa”. So when I was very young I didn´t even know jazz music existed, you know? My only knowledge, the information on music that I received came from what I heard on the radio, right? And in movies I guess... So all I knew existed at that time was rock for me, rock, rock. So in the age of nine to fourteen it was rock, rock, rock... rock n´ roll. And then I must have discovered jazz, later on when I was a teenager. And almost I´ve just had open up to a whole world, not only the drumming style but more important the music, the first instrumental music that I really paid attention to. So indeed around that age my mind opened up to rythms other than straight time (hums a rock rhythm) but jazz (hums a swing rhythm)...whow my christ we´re swinging, oh yeah i like that! So it was the change, the change of the rhytmic structure that became the most appealing thing to me. So you know I became like obsessed with Buddy Rich and his technique and so I wanted to have technique like him and he was in my mind but I never could, this is most to coordinate my body and my wrists, but I still never was able to get the kind of technique that I wanted to get so I could... mature.
SM: You attended classes at the UCLA Film School with the unforgettable David Raksin. Which has been the best legacy he has left you throughout his teaching?
CY: The greatest legacy that I received from David Raksin from my time with him was his convincing me that I had talent, yes? When I moved out to Los Angeles I didn´t know anybody, I´d never scored a movie before, I barely had written one note of music too, no... it was a dream, crazy dream. His greatest legacy to me was at a time in which at my first year there I nearly quit... he said: “no. You are not gonna quit... you stay. And I work with you”. So it was giving me confidence, number one. Number two: “remember Chris that each movie score you write, even a bad movie, you have to treat it like “Gone With The Wind”... Give it your best, give it your best, give it your best...”. That was a big message. Has to be perfect. So it was like: “yes, yes, I´ll try to make it perfect”. So he inspired me to stay but also to make perfect. And I loved his music, it is fantastic, it is perfect. So it´s interesting music; not only beautiful melody, but all of the countermelodies, harmonies, that´s what makes it whoah!
SM: You said you became interested into movie music after listening to “The Fantasy World Of Bernard Herrmann”. What did you in fact discover in Bernard´s music, and why did you then decide this was the way you wanted to follow, that is, film scoring?
CY: It is probably the most dramatic film music you´ll ever hear, you agree? Very dramatic. Very aggresive. Usually very big and boy, his sense of instrumental color... his orchestration was so unique. He would have strings and sixteen french horns or eight harps and vibe, basoons, always strange combinations of instruments, so it was very colorful music, and that´s what attracted me, it was the color... The drama... it´s simple music, you would said, it´s kind of simple music. It is not extremely complex but it´s so well orchestrated, color. It´s distinctively his music. And once you have heard it and it ratches on you and wouldn´t like go. So I heard it and said: “oh, it’s so heavenly...” It wouldn´t like go once you heard it. I coudn´t stop thinking about it. It made you to want more, more, more...
SM: The kind of music that punchs you up...
CY Yes, yes... and I wanted more, more, more...
SM: You said you are a man of two faces: one is your attraction by the abstract musical ideas of the twentieth century (as developed in “The Vagrant”, for instance) and the other face is that you seem enjoying scoring “americana” as in “American Harvest”, for instance. Both sides being quite opposite each other... Do you consider yourself an eclectic composer?
CY: You have done your homework!. It´s a very good question. Indeed, you are absolutely right. There´s two sides to me, I think, two basic sides: one is the eclectic side, the weird side... the (makes strange noises) side. The aggresive, dramatic, non melodic... it´s (makes noises). There is also a side that is “Murder In The First”... the melodic, the beautiful melody. Who doesn´t want to write a great melody, yeah? I might believe that I have both, that I can do both. So there can be some that can write a melody but can´t do (makes noises) and some who can do (makes noises) but can´t write a melody. So that I am able to do both I think allows me to be eclectic. Indeed, I´m very, very lucky that I´ve not been entirely typecasted at doing horror movies. I could have been but it didn´t happen. And so indeed I may not be the first composer that movie directors think about for dramatic movies but I can do dramatic movies and I have done dramatic movies. Indeeed, the americana sort of movie like you say... like “American Harvest”. That is the all-american melodic approach to scoring. You know: Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, these kind of people...
SM: Maybe also Roy Harris...
CY: Roy Harris! You knew he taught at UCLA?... William Schumann... all this great american composers... Henry Cowell, Charles Ives....
SM: Randall Thomson....
CY: You know Randall Thomson? I adore his third symphony... I just listened to it before I came. So yes. Excellent. So yes, the american voice gives you an opportunity to communicate to american audiences right?
SM: Can you please tell us about your creative process to film scoring?
CY: My creative process to film scoring is: from the beginning I try to see the movie the first time without temp music, you know?. I try to insist they show it to me naked... Then, after seeing the film once, hopefully some sounds start to come to my head... I would watch the film maybe one more time then I step away from the movie and I walk around and I keep in my head the images and then I start thinking of themes. Not the picture, but just themes that have to do with the picture as I recall it... And then I write a whole bunch of themes, many, many, many themes... without locate the picture. Then I´ll do that for a week, five days, six days, and I stop. And then I´ll go back and look at the movie and I go to any these themes if they are going to work and I look at the movie again with these themes and go: “ no, no, no” or “maybe this would fit for this moment in the movie”. Then after if I like it I keep it along the road then I realise that I have certain summarize the movie. Every movie can be broken down into sort of patterns, dramatic patterns or musical patterns. And I come up with these categories and I go... I need a theme, a love theme, the action theme, or so... four-five themes... then I figure out a big scene that best demonstrates that category. If I need a love theme I´ll look for this scene that has the most significant moment of love and write that. But before I commit anything to paper finally, the first thing I would do, I mean any of the underscore moments to paper, I would start off by writing “main title” and “end title”. I do these first and I would not write anything in the middle until I have “main title” and “end title”. These are the two moments where music is featured, the bookends. Overture, closing. So I just have to do that. It´s what forces me to make up my mind about the themes and how are they going to be presented. What´s the sound, what am I saying?. And once I do that, Okay I know this is going now... I used to do differentely when I was started off... I used to take some small, tiny cue in the middle of the movie, sort of tiptoe right that and go: “okay now start building”.
SM: And now it´s the other way: from the beginning to end credits and then, I´ll do this and...
CY: Yes, I think it´s better what I do.
SM: Let´s now talk about your music and the different musical styles you have worked on. We know you are a great fan of terror genre and that you collect masks and autographs from classic stars. Since music is a very essential part of this genre, which are the concepts, the ideas, the key element when you start scoring terror music?
CY: There is a simple answer and there is a more complex answer. Okay, I hope I can describe this properly. Normally, when a composer is brought on to a horror movie at the end, most directors are worried because they had an idea and this world is a very unusual world that they would hoping would be always present in their movie. There is always this sense of dread, and doom, and fear so they hope it´s there, they hope!. But it needs music to make that come alive, to give that sense of this dreadful world that this movie takes a place in. So I would have to say that when I look at a terror movie there is the obvious stuff that a composer of horror/terror movies has to do and that is to scare people. You have the audiences to jump, to scream, you know: make the girls scream... That´s important. But more important, I think, the horror scores which are more exciting to me and my favourite moments of my own work are those moments where I use the music to step into the screen, to go behind the images, behind this dark world, this thing that you have to step aside with the music and illuminate, this disease world that is there all the time. And I can´t quite describe it but that´s what I have to do. Step into the movie and illuminate this very dark tableau of sickness with music. So I hope you understand.
SM: You have scored terror movies from different perspectives. For instance, your orchestral score for “Invaders From Mars” emphasizes action. What kind of problems did come up with this movie score?
CY: Yes. This is the first movie score that I had rejected. I was so worried, so depressed, very depressed...
SM: You know what once John Scott said: no composer has arrived [in Hollywood] until an score has been rejected...
CY: Oh, sure. That´s very true. The “Invaders From Mars” score, there are two parts to that score: electronic and orchestral. The electronic stuff I went way out into the weird world of musique concrete, you know, a french invented style of electronic music. In my case I recorded acoustic instruments: percussion, piano... and then I slowed down or speeded up and then slowed it down, played backwards and these kind of things. It was very weird, a very weird score. And they hated it. Not the director, the director was gone, Tobe Hooper. He was gone and was working in his next movie. So it was thrown out and I was heartbroken and his assistant said: “okay, for the orchestral music [we need] Rambo: make it sound like Rambo”. So I said: “what?” “Rambo”. Okay. fine. I´ll do that. because I was so hurt, and worried that they don´t like the electronic and they thrown it out. So I had to write Rambo. That was a terrible experience. However, the electronic portion of it: there was a german, Thomas Karban who used to work for a label called Edel, you know Thomas Karban?. Thomas Karban adored that score. And he said: “I want to put this out”. And so Thomas made me go back to that score. When it was rejected all I wanted was to put it in the closet but that never happened. So I did that And Thomas said: “no, no, please listen to it again”. So he encouraged me to rework the music rejected. And now I am kind of proud of it. There is a CD of that.
SM: In those passages where there is action, Jerry Goldsmith´s influence seem to be around which should not come as a surprise since we know Jerry is one of the composers you admire most.
CY: The action music, the orchestral music they told me to steal Jerry Goldsmith. Make Rambo, they told me. And you know what? That music was released on CD wasn´t it? The orchestral music for “Invaders”... I should never had released that.
SM: There is a double CD called “Cinema Septet” where there are other other tracks but a few from...
CY: Yes, I never should had put that music on CD, you agree?
SM: We love the Karban recording, the original electronic concept but...
CY: Did you hear that?
SM: Yeah, we love that.
CY: Okay. The orchestra stuff I should never put that into a CD...
SM: It sounds pretty much like Rambo I think...
CY: Why I put that into a CD? I was stupid...
SM: You reached a considerable success with “Hellraiser” and its follow-up “Hellbound”. Despite being quite violent, we feel your music is more, let´s say, intelectual, less aggresive than the images. Why did you decide to take this approach to this demonic universe?
CY: “Hellraiser”, I think, it´s more intellectual, to me, than “Hellbound”. “Hellraiser”, Clive Barker the director, talked me very intelectually. He is a great author. When we looked at the movie he said: I want you to think about this. and I want you to think about this. When someone gets slashed, he still wanted us to be thinking about this. Don´t make it violent, make it thinking-ness our music. So he encouraged me to make it thinkingness the music. And I remember that when I started on that movie I just finished doing “Nightmare On Elm Street II” ... and he said: Chris, I don´t want “Nightmare On Elm Street II”. Make it smarter. So I did that, I think. “Hellbound” was a little bit more aggresive that is a very less head, more violence in that score. So in that the director said: make it a celebration of horror. Celebrate that there is horror but make it bloody ugly at times (laughs). It´s ugly, I think.
SM: How was your relationship with Clive Barker?
CY: It was fantastic. Fantastic...
SM: You said he was a very intellectual man...
CY: Yeah. Extremely. In fact, I tell him come... I teach at class, you know?. I had an assigment for my students which was that they re-score “Hellraiser”. The wrote new music for it. And then they record it with an orchestra. And then they come it and critique it. Clive came in and we spot at the movie with Clive and he came in and he commented the student´s cues for “Hellraiser”. So we re-score “Hellraiser”. That´s good.
SM: Your score for “Urban Legend” is quite an aggresive one... How was it that you scored this movie?
CY: I scored that movie because the director Jamie Blanks, an australian director, he is a fan of my music, he loved my horror music, in fact while they were shooting the movie he actually called me up (I think they were shooting in Australia) and he said: “I want you to score my movie. I am such a fan”. And of course, I said: “Really?” and he said: “You have to score my movie. You are the perfect person for it”. I said: “Okay. If you want me that badly, I´ll be there. Where is the bottom line to sign?.
SM: Just a curiosity: how did come about the idea of paying hommage to “Urban Legend” in the initial scene of “The Glass House”?
CY: Oh, right. Because they told me to. I don´t have a big remember. They really love the cue I did in “Urban Legend” and said: copy it. I´ve completely forgot that. But yes.
SM: With “Species” you approach the so-called fantastic-terror genre. It is quite striking the use of sustained low key notes, the mistery of your music. How did you conceive this score?. Is there a certain influence of Goldsmith´s “Alien” with respect to darkness?
CY: I would have to say, I don´t remember much about it. I can tell you that the “main title” that you hear in that movie... It took a while to get that “main title”. I wrote a main title and the director didn´t like it... It´s kinda like Jerry Goldsmith´s experience on “Basic Instinct”... He had written a “main title” and the director didn´t really like it... but there was a cue that they were doing in the interior of the movie and the director Paul Verhoeven, I think, said: that´s what the “main title” must be. Develop that. Same happened with me on that movie. The “main title” music was a smaller cue. We have a female choir and she is a very beautiful girl. Don´t have men´s choir, have women´s choir. Because the lead villain is a female. I would say definitely Jerry Goldsmith´s “Alien” or Jerry Goldsmith´s work in general influenced me...
SM: “The Vagrant” is quite a surprising score in the sense that it allows you to explore new musical ideas based on the avant-garde. Can you explain how these ideas came about for this movie, and if do you think it is difficult nowadays to deep into the avant garde territory with movie music?
CY: Well, the reason why I was able to explore the world of the avant-garde in that score was because the director encouraged me to do so. The film had temp music in it, as all films do, but the director hated the temp music. He was worried, he thought the music was not working and had to be scary but tongue-in-cheek, kind of funny, quirky, scary. And the temp music they put in it was or too scary or too funny but he couldn´t find the right combination. So he gave me the film and said me: “Chris, we are in trouble. Make this work”. So he said: “do anything you want”. And so I got permission to explore to explore this crazy world of sound and he was very happy with it. He said: “Did you know that wasn´t until your music was put on the movie that the studio really understood what the movie was?. They heard your music with it and said: oh! now I see what this movie is”. It´s a weird movie. It was an odd movie. A black comedy. The tiny movies I have worked on since have not allowed me to do that ever again. And I would love to do that again but as the movies get bigger and better my opportunities to experiment get smaller and smaller, that´s the payoff. There is too much money at the stake. No time to make risks. Make it safe. Make it safe. Make it safe.
SM: Last year you scored “The Grudge”, a remake of the same succesful Japanese terror movie. This kind of terror-visualized style, do you think it will contribute to introduce new musical concepts for this genre?
CY: Well, I can´t say in my case it did... the score I did for that was pretty conventional, wasn´t it? It has strings, you´ve heard it before... Did you hear the score for the japanese version they did?
SM: Yes, an ambient score.
CY: Very minimalistic synth/sound design. In Japan, in their horror movies it´s all very soft, weird music and originally when I met the director he wanted me to go in that direction and the studio said: no, no. “Try to make some kind of melody”. It´s not much melody in that movie, very little, but more than the director originally wanted. So the odd thing was that there are two themes in that movie, maybe. But ultimately it´s a string orchestra score. I took a japansese based movie and americanized it, I think. I did a more coventional string score. So my answer to that question on that one: maybe, but not in my experience. [They said] Make it more accesible to american audiences, make it sound like an american film score.
SM: With “Flowers In The Attic” there seems to be a paradox or contradiction in the sense that you are using innocent themes associated to children who have in fact lost their innocence... How do you explain this contradiction?
CY: Here´s another situation... I´m trying to recall these movie scores way back. But at a time I came on that movie the director already quit because he was so unhappy with the movie and they were unhappy with him. Again it was a situation where the temp music was all sort of a conventional horror music; it was too much. I´ve never seen screaming with the temp music, the audiences were laughing... laughing because the music was way over the top. Very melodramatic. The head of the company, Tom Fries, said: “Listen: take this movie. I don´t know what to tell you except it is best to lock”. And so the thing I watched on to was in the minutes I recall before the children´s father dies... he gives his daughter a music box as a gift. And she travels with this music box when she goes to visit the grandmother. So I wrote the music box theme first and said: whow, yes this has to be my main theme. What I needed to do was just what Elmer Bernstein did in “To Kill A Mockingbird”, see this movie from their perspective. To Kill A Mockingbird´s score is all about the kids; it is all seen from the world of the children. So I tried to, in my own way, borrow from that approach. To have the music help us see the movie from the children´s perspective, even know they lose their innocence the music tries to retain the innocence. There´s scary music, I think, in that score, a little bit, I can´t remember at all... I just remember that I tried to make it sweet whenever I could...
SM: “The Tower” shows you in a more intim and romantic vein, full of delicacy. It is a wonderful score. Which are your memories and experiences of this work in which your nephew also collaborated?
CY: That´s right. It´s my nephew´s movie. I was worried because it was his first movie and I wanted to be sure he was happy. I was worried, but less worried than I would have been if it had been a big Hollywood movie. And so I guess my favorites memories of that work were working with my nephew, being able to re-investigate the language that I had sort of used in “Haunted Summer”. It´s kinda´ like “Haunted Summer”, a little bit. Being able to return to a vocabulary that I hadn´t used in a while. It´s romantic, very sweet. It´s a ghost story, a romantic ghost story, and I love ghost stories.
SM: In quite a number of your scores –it comes to my mind “Jennifer 8”- the main theme is played on the piano, an idea of yours that has also been followed by other composers. Why the piano?. Any special significance for using this instrument?
CY: Because that was the first suspense movie I have ever worked on. Indeed, [it is] a love story. It´s a thriller, but more importantly, it´s a love story. And so it was the first thriller that I have ever worked on where there´s a meaningful love story in the midst of it and ultimately it´s about a man trying to save the life of a blind woman (Uma Thurman) that is being chased by a serial killer, by a lunatic. So in the “main title” I had to create a sense of romantic mystery. So it seemed to me that piano was the right way to go... to create romance. And he [the director] was thrilled.
SM: “Copycat”, whose main theme also reminds us of “Jennifer 8”, marks the beginning of your collaboration with Jon Amiel. How was to work with Jon?
CY: Fantastic to work with Jon. The original composer for “Copycat” was actually James Newton Howard. He wanted to have James Newton Howard to score and he had already signed to do “Copycat” but then he quit because he got “Waterworld”. So my working relationship with him was great. And, indeed, you are absolutely right: the theme is very much like “Jennifer 8”. I´ve often humorously called the “Copycat main title” Jennifer 9 (laughs).
SM: Also for Jon Amiel you have scored two great action movies: “Entrapment” and “The Core”. It is our impression that with “The Core” you have achieved one of your most dynamic and impressive scores. What can you tell us about this project?
CY: I can tell you that it was the only movie that I´ve worked on with Jon where they actually flew me out to on location to see them shot the movie...
SM: Where did they shoot the movie?
CY: I think it was in Seattle, somewhere north. So I got to go on location. And I think that helped. He and I talked about it even before the film was finished so I started thinking about it earlier on and I think that helped.
SM: Are you satisfied with your score for the movie?
CY: Yes, I am. There´s a couple of moments in this score I like.
SM: By the way, how did come about the idea of offering this score to the buyers of “The Tower”? This was an unusual, clever idea which, however, has had no continuity nor has it been followed by other composers...
CY: Well, I have done a lot of promotional CDs. And I´ve always wanted to keep them away because I can´t sell them. Legally I can not sell them because they are scores performed in Los Angeles (union recordings) and they never came out comercially. It´s too expensive to pay the re-use. So I said: “Doug: I want to give these away”. And he was the one to said: “oh, don´t give it away. Have the fans have to buy something first and then, if they buy that, then we pack it for free”. It was an incentive. It was his idea to couple “The Core” with “The Tower”. Buy “The Tower”, then you get “The Core”. At first I suggested just give “The Core” to anyone who wants “The Core”. I would want to do that again. I love to give out another score of mine. So maybe we would do that in the future.
SM: We feel “Entrapment” is a score more connected with “Hard Rain”. The using of eight french horns outlines even more the romantic side of the story. Do you think that action and adventure movies call for great, epic music? Up to what extend composers are allow to give free reign to their ideas, to choose freely without interferences the thematic and the music or else, they are subject to some “indications” or “guidelines” from the director or the producer?
CY: Indeed, “Entrapment” is a score connected to “Hard Rain” even now I don´t really remember the scores, I do remember being similar. Eight french horns: I´ve used them a lot, probably too much now. I´ve used in “Entrapment”, I´ve used in “Hard Rain”, I´ve used again in “Ghost Rider”, I like eight horns. The composers are not given free reign to do anything. There are given guidelines. And then you work within those guidelines. So I have to say I have never been given entirely free reign.
SM: Is the director or the producer who gives those guidelines?
CY: The director. Sometimes the producers, near the beginning, but usually they give the director his opportunity to decide how to do the music. Then I start working with the director doing synth mockups, then the producer comes in and goes: yes or no.
Read the Second Part
22-august-2006
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