Monsters and Critics is extremely honored to have recently interviewed the award winning motion picture composer, John Powell.
Originally from the UK, John, who presently lives in Marina del Rey California has scored such films as John Woo’s ‘Face/Off’ (1997), ‘The Bourne Supremacy’ (2004), and this year’s ‘X-Men: The Last Stand,’ ‘United 93,’ and ‘Happy Feet’.
John is presently working on ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ (2007) and ‘Horton Hears a Who’ (2008).
To say he is a busy man is an understatement.
Here is our interview:
M&C: Mr. Powell, thanks for taking the time to speak with Monsters and Critics.
JP: Thank you for thinking of me.
M&C: While the majority of our audience is a rather sophisticated one, can you walk us through the process of scoring a film? Do you sit with the director in the development stage or do you read the script and immediately come up with a mental note of music that will drive the action?
JP: Well, it’s different for each project. For ‘Happy Feet,’ I first sat down with director George Miller to go over the movie and figure out how we were going to do all of this music. It was all suggested in the script, but not specifically in any way. George didn’t know exactly how he wanted it to go. He wanted to play “chicken and the egg,” basically with it. So we’d start with an idea, I’d take it, do something, then he’d react to it, pass it back, and so on and so forth for four years.
M&C: Most people don’t realize the role music plays in a film – would you like to comment on the importance of the music score?
JP: It used to be there to cover up the sound of the projector. You can’t just write film music for the sake of being music. It has to serve its purpose in the film. But at the same time I can’t bear the idea that without the film, it means nothing.
M&C: In the early part of your career, you composed music for TV and commercials. Besides length of composition how different is that than composing for an entire feature film?
JP: With features films, you have more time and also more involvement with the production. With a commercial, there still needs to be a theme, but you have to tell the story in 1 minute. Both have unique challenges.
M&C: You have scored many award winning films and you yourself have won a few ASCAP Awards and have been nominated for others but, and you will excuse me for saying this – no Academy Award nominations. Does that bother you – your work is deserving of an Oscar ©. Do you think it is the politics of the Academy Award game that has kept you from being nominated/winning?
JP: Of course it would be an honor to win an Oscar. But I don’t think the Academy necessarily operates as a collective unit. I don’t score films to win an award; that’s not at the forefront of my mind when I’m working on a film. But it would be an honor.
M&C: Studios (distributors) now make about 60% of their revenue from off shore play dates. This means that a film must appeal across cultural boundaries. People have said that music is universal but do these cultural differences play a role in your original conception of a movies score?
JP: love so many types of music that I find myself influenced and I can’t help but let it filter into what I’m doing. I’m not sure it is deliberate. The information technology we have now allows us to stretch the world, and hear experiences all around the world immediately. We’re now very comfortable with all different types of music, as well as ideas and cultural concepts. I think music has been one of the fastest moving influences. It seems easy for people to pick up other cultures’ music and enjoy them.
M&C: You have now scored live action features and animated features – which do you prefer?
JP: I love animation so much; I really always have, as long as it’s good animation. I’ve always had a penchant for it. I love the visual art of it – I love the acting in animation films, which is often so much better than in live action films. I’m always happy to do these great movies – I’m very lucky in the ones I’ve done.
M&C: When scoring animated features, how much (if any) do you interact with the talent playing the characters and how much do you build the score around the way the actors are playing their characters?
JP: It depends on the project. I interacted with every character in ‘Happy Feet’ except Elijah Wood because they all performed songs- Brittany Murphy, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Robin Williams.
For ‘Ice Age,’ I worked a lot with John Leguizamo.
M&C: What kind of musical score do you have in mind for us with the upcoming “Horton” and “Bourne Ultimatum?”
JP: [For ‘Horton/] I have to write some of the music in advance, because Seuss’s world has often got musical instruments in it, people walking around with strange musical instruments. And in this particular case, in the climax of the movie, everyone in Whoville is trying to make themselves be heard by playing, shouting, singing, musical instruments – so we can’t make that part of the film until we’ve written the music. . . I’m having a go at seeing what I can go crazy with. In fact, I was just recording some cactuses. . . You pick at their spines, and they’re quite resonant, so you get these very interesting sounds. It’s dangerous, but it’s what I’m doing! I don’t know if it’s musical or not, but we’ll see!
[For ‘Bourne Ultimatum’] I have no idea until I see a script at the very least, which I haven’t yet. I’ve been brought on to do it, but I won’t really get into it just yet.
I don’t know, it will be interesting to see! I don’t even know the story at the moment, but I know it picks up in New York where the second film left off, but we’ll see. The music will basically be designed to hopefully take us to the same places the film does.
M&C: What advice would you give a young person that wants to enter the industry composing for features?
JP: The thing I always say I learned in music college was that I learned to be creative. I didn’t learn orchestration; I didn’t learn composition. If anyone tries to teach you composition, they are trying to teach you technique. Learn how to create.
M&C: John, once again, thanks for visiting with us.
Thanks also to Tom Kidd at Costa Communications for facilitating the interview
USA
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