Tell us a little about your background, both personally and professionally. How did you first discover film music?
My path to film music started with musicals: going to dozens of stage shows as a kid with my parents and sisters, and watching films, including both the classics and animated musicals from the ‘90s. I didn’t realize until years later the way that I was absorbing the music from non-musical films, too, like The Land Before Time, Peter Pan, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. That music was formative at a deeper level than taste, I think. It — and the stories it helped tell — shaped the way I saw the world and processed my emotions, and it eventually made me want to create art that had the same resonance.
The moment I became a film music fan in a more involved way was while watching the final scene of The Da Vinci Code. I remember rushing home and looking up Hans Zimmer’s “Chevaliers de Sangreal,” then discovering the major film music websites of that time and starting to post on the Filmtracks Scoreboard. That led me to go back and explore music from my childhood. I’ll never forget listening to “Remembering Childhood” from Hook in my freshman dorm room and bursting into tears, and having no idea why. In the years since I’ve come to appreciate more and more the way in which film music has been a part of every phase of my life. That includes influencing the creation of my own music under the name Align In Time, which owes a lot to the storytelling approach and musical language of the composers and scores I love.
How did you begin your career as a film music journalist? Tell us a little about that history, and what you do now as a film music journalist.
I’ve written about film music in many ways over the last 15-20 years, but I only began to do it consistently over the last two. That recent activity started because I realized that Disney’s first Narnia film was approaching its 20th anniversary, and I wrote down some thoughts on Harry Gregson-Williams’ scores for the series, which are among my favorites. That ballooned into a substantial piece that seemed worth sharing with an audience, so I reached out to my friend Vikram Lakhanpal, a contributor to Film Score Monthly, who connected me to his editor, Jon Kaplan. Since then I’ve been lucky to conduct many interviews with some of my favorite composers, including, most recently, Simon Franglen on Avatar: Fire and Ash, and John Powell on Wicked: For Good. Meanwhile the Narnia piece has continued to expand into what is now a book — informed by conversations with Gregson-Williams, director Andrew Adamson, and most of the music team from those films — and I’m exploring plans for publishing that next year.
What, in your opinion, are the things that are necessary for a film score to be successful?
There are many different ways for a score to win me over. The scores that I find most impressive are those that play a substantial role in advancing the narrative and enhancing the emotional impact of their film, and that define a distinct and immersive world or atmosphere. Usually that is supported by clear thematic structure and development, a compelling ebb and flow of subtle and overtly expressive moments, and a characteristic soundscape shaped by the instrumental and harmonic palette.
But plenty of great scores don’t do all of those things, which leads me to the other key element: I think critics tend to underrate how much musical taste shapes what we think comprises a “good” score, especially when listening outside the film. My favorite scores, even ones that sound very different from each other, bear common musical traits that can also be found in the non-film music I love, and there’s no question to me that those factors heavily influence my appreciation. As much as I’d like to say effectiveness in the film is the sole consideration — and that really is the only thing that matters, when considering the main purpose of this art — the reality is that music becomes part of my day-to-day life in a way that film cannot.
What is your opinion of the film music industry as it stands today? You are one of our newest members; do you have any observations about how things have changed, or not changed, in recent years?
It’s hard to be confident identifying major shifts without the benefit of time. It does feel like we are now past the end of an era (defined by the Remote Control sound and — not in a derogatory way, to me — “sound design” scores), and I’m very curious to see what the next major movement will be. A trend I’m happy about is increasing access and exposure to international films and scores — many of my favorites each year come from projects I wouldn’t even have heard existed 10 years ago.
Two things I see happening (that appear contradictory) are a welcome diversification in the backgrounds of composers getting major opportunities, and a homogenization of mainstream film music. The latter seems to be connected to the explosion in content production of the streaming era. More types of people are getting the chance to write music for media that millions of people will see, but the creative leash is getting tightened on those projects, so many of which are designed (really, productized) to meet certain genre expectations and appeal to an existing audience or algorithmic target.
Who do you think are the best film music composers, historically and working today? What is it about their music that appeals to you?
It’s not an original perspective, but I think John Williams stands alone. His ability to craft highly complex and yet highly memorable music that is perfectly aligned to story and scene is unmatched. His career has set a bar that I believe will never be reached, in part because while film will continue to thrive, I’m not sure it has much new to say in terms of form and structure. I expect his work will remain the standard as new art forms like interactive media allow new composers to evolve how music can tell stories and shape experiences.
That said, my favorites also include James Horner, Harry Gregson-Williams, James Newton Howard, Hans Zimmer, and Alan Menken. Recently, I’ve loved the work of Philip Klein, Yoko Kanno, Amelia Warner, Naoki Sato, and Kris Bowers. In the world of video games, I am in awe of Olivier Deriviere, who I very well could be on his way to deserving the medium-shaping influence and recognition that some like Zimmer has had with film.