Monsters and Critics was fortunate to be able to interview composer John Frizzell, who is featured on the newly released movie 'Primeval.’
John Frizzell
John has demonstrated an ability to transcend film genres when scoring a project. He has created scores as varied as the dark and violent ‘Alien Resurrection,’ the quirky off-beat music for the cult classic ‘Office Space,’ the epic sounds of ‘Gods and Generals’ and the gentle melodies of the intimate period drama ‘The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio.’
He has collaborated with DMX's team on the score to ‘Cradle 2 the Grave,’ composed for the Looney Tunes characters in the short film ‘The Wizzard of Ow,’ and created the plaintive jazz score behind James Franco's Golden Globe winning performance in ‘James Dean.’
It was during his college years that Frizzell met his mentor, guitar legend Joe Pass. It was through Pass that Frizzell discovered his calling as a composer.
This skill led him to work with Academy Award winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, for whom Frizzell provided orchestrations to Oliver Stone's landmark mini-series “Wild Palms.”
Re-locating to Los Angeles, Frizzell was introduced to James Newton Howard, who championed him and composed the themes for Frizzell's first two feature films, ‘The Rich Man's Wife’ and ‘Dante's Peak.’
Recently, he collaborated to revamp the score page in Apple Computer’s flagship program Logic Pro, enabling a much more intuitive approach to orchestral composition. His orchestral mock-ups, a great asset to the post-production process, are often used instead of temp score.
Frizzell is an advocate of featuring soloists in scores, and has featured jazz great Jack Sheldon, violin virtuoso Mark O'Connor, Chieftans member Paddy Maloney and Sean and Sara Watkins, members of the Grammy winning band Nickel Creek.
In addition to scoring for film, Frizzell recently co-composed a song with Nickel Creek guitarist Sean Watkins for Watkins' upcoming solo album.
His upcoming film projects include the thrillers 'First Born,' starring Elizabeth Shue, 'Beneath,' 'Gustave'and the comedy 'Careless.'
The interview follows:
M&C : Mr. Frizzell, first thanks for taking the time to speak with Monsters and Critics and on the opening of ‘Primeval.’
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?
JF : There are so many different scenarios. Let's take the 'best case' scenario, which is what “Primeval” was.
By best case, I mean allowing the highest degree of creativity, and, very important, the most enjoyable. Michael Katleman hired me for the film before he started shooting. This gave me time to figure out how I wanted to score the film. Since this plan meant going to Africa and building a huge palette of African sounds, it was very good that we had a lot of time, because we used it. During scoring, there was a lot of experimenting revising, trying new things, succeeding, failing.
In the case of “Primeval,” the first step after recording in Africa was to compose some sketches. I wrote about 10 minutes of music before there was any picture and played them for Michael. We picked the tones which were working best. Then, I wrote more themes and then started seeing which theme worked best in which area of the film. It is important when scoring a film with a lot of music to think way beyond the individual piece of music, or cue as they are called. I make an effort to structure the score across the whole film, to think of it as one big piece, and structure the pace and use of themes on a macro-scale.
Sometimes there is very little time on a film and you just go from pure instinct. This too works very well although it can be a bit of a nail biter at times.
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?
JF : Well, I'm glancing down the IMDB's top 250 movie list right now, and there are very few films that are not music intensive. Some feature songs more than score, but it is very rare that a great film does not have great music and often that music is an original score.
I think the reason music is so important in film is that film often plays with our sense of time, the rate at which it passes. Music is integral to that, creating a sense of pace or time -- and let's not forget emotion. I would guess that music has accompanied storytelling for a long time. I imagine Grog the caveman banging bones and rocks together to help the dramatic content of his saga. That was early filmscoring (without royalties).
M&C : What was it like traveling across three continents to score Primeval? Obviously the music varied widely – how were you able to blend the various music together?
JF : South Africa was amazing. I recorded in Cape Town for 10 days. I worked with Dizu from Amanpondo and Madosini, who is a legend in World Music. I recorded so many instruments I can't even begin to name them. I recorded things I never knew could be an instrument, like kelp dried into a sort of trumpet. I then came back to LA and wrote the score with all of my African recordings after which it was off to Prague for the orchestral recording. I have a lot of frequent flier miles now.
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?
JF : I think film has its own language for music. It evolved from opera. A few decades ago film music was dominated by the concepts of the romantic period until composers like Elmer Bernstein injected jazz into film. Since then, just like acting, the language we have used to score films has evolved into its own thing, away from its early connection to opera (although it still can reflect back to these ideas in epic situations). Film music is sometimes like 'the blob' swallowing up ideas from Electronica, drum and bass and other popular trends.
I think the 'small' world we live in now, with a Starbucks on every corner, understands the language of film music, but I think this is a phenomenon of the last several decades.
M&C: You have composed music for comedies and horror genre movies – obviously a difference in tempo but where does your inspiration come from with each?
JF : I really enjoy writing something very different from the previous score. Perhaps this is why I have ended up scoring such a wide range of films. I have been very fortunate in this. My favorite type of project is a big complex score, where I have to come up with unique ideas for instruments and textures. I enjoy pushing the technology to the limit and finding new ways to do things. Primeval was a good example of this because I was using very traditional African music but I had to have it precisely hit picture. This was done by taking short performances and loading them into a software plug-in called INTAKT which allowed me to control the tempo of each performance. This software is fairly new, but I had over 800 performances loaded for the project.
M&C : You have composed music for TV and features; besides length of composition how different is composing for TV as opposed to a feature film?
JF: It all depends. Some TV projects I have done like “James Dean” and “Four Minutes” are some of my favorite works. I don't like to change my process for any project. I try to always take something because I really enjoy it.
M&C : When scoring a movie, how much (if any) do you interact with the talent and how much do you build the score around the way the actors are playing their roles?
JF : I rarely meet the actors. I don't really like to go to the set, because if I see a scene being filmed, whenever I'm scoring it I think things like, “Oh -- I'm just off camera to the right now.” I really enjoy films, and when I am scoring a film I get really wrapped up in it being real. So visiting the set or meeting the actors doesn't add anything to the process.
M&C: You have won an ASCAP and a BMI Award 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?
JF : Well thank you. I'm still a bit of a new comer in this business (at least in my mind). I have only recently really understood my voice as a composer. Being acknowledged by your peers with a nomination is a great honor. I would like to earn that one day. I think getting that honor is often about getting the right film. I think the best plan is to do your best work always, enjoy your work, put your heart into your work and let everything else take its course.
M&C : What advice would you give a young person that wants to enter the industry composing for features?
JF : I am teaching the grad students this year at USC and I'm just full of advice. I can only speak from my experience. I have seen many composers succeed with methods which I have believed to be not very effective. I think we all have a different mechanism for getting started which has to conform to who we are.
For me, it is about consistency, teamwork (I didn't use to understand that one at all), conservation of energy, and being constructively self critical. I have had the pleasure of watching a young composer get started over the last two years. His name is Frederik Wiedmann and I'm sure you will be hearing a lot from him in the years to come. He has used a lot of my techniques but has also taught me a lot of things. Perhaps as I mature, I am becoming a better student.
M&C : John, once again, thanks for taking time to talk with us.
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