Latest / Half the Picture / #37 - JOHN OTTMAN

Transcript

#37 - JOHN OTTMAN · Half the Picture

• 0:00
  I don't know if you know how legendary the debacle was, behind the scenes in X-Men 1,
• 0:05
  they still talk about it to this day, you know, the meltdowns that happened and so forth.
• 0:09
  They had five editors on board and I guess they hated each other and they all hated Brian.
• 0:13
  It was like this whole crazy thing.
• 0:15
  Brian, through X-Men 1, would say, well, John would do this.
• 0:17
  Well, John would do this. Well, John would do this.
• 0:18
  Well, John would do this. He wanted everything to work the way we work.
• 0:21
  And I'll never forget, I walked into the final dub of X-Men 1 just to say hi, you know.
• 0:25
  The editor was up at the console with the mixer.
• 0:28
  Oh, it's John Altman and that guy's head whipped around and laser beams could have come out of his eyes
• 0:34
  and blasted my head off, you know.
• 0:43
  Hello, John. Welcome to Half the Pitcher. How are you doing today?
• 0:46
  I'm good. Good to be here. Thanks.
• 0:48
  All right. It's a real pleasure to have you on. We were saying before we started,
• 0:52
  but like I was a fan of yours, I think from when I first saw X-Men 2,
• 0:56
  which is a fantastic film and for me, it still holds up.
• 0:59
  And I saw your credit as, you know, as accredited to editor John Altman, composer John Altman.
• 1:04
  And I was like, oh, okay, this is interesting. This guy's got both bases covered.
• 1:09
  And then all... That was a scary one for me because, you know,
• 1:13
  I'd really done that with a smaller film, which was usual suspects.
• 1:16
  And when I was brought under this thing, it was a BMF and I told the story before,
• 1:21
  where I was just so freaked out about writing, you know, or two-hour film score and trying to
• 1:26
  also cut the whole movie. And I brought this, then I, um, my mini gear, my music studio,
• 1:31
  into the editing room. And there was just no time. And so I would stare at it.
• 1:35
  It would stress me out so much like I built a wall. So I wouldn't have to look at it,
• 1:39
  because it would just really freak me out. But, um, anyway, I ended up writing all the themes,
• 1:44
  at least. And then just worried about it the whole time I was editing.
• 1:48
  When I was at a write, this frickin' score. So, um, but it worked out somehow. I don't know,
• 1:54
  I mean, I looked back and, you know, I was so young then. And I'm still full of energy,
• 1:58
  but it's like, I couldn't put myself through that again. You know, only for maybe 20 years,
• 2:02
  could I do that, you know? And then, uh, when we, uh, I was going to basically,
• 2:07
  after X-Men Apocos, I said that said, I can't do this anymore. It's just too much.
• 2:11
  And, uh, and then, of course, you had to dangle the character,
• 2:14
  Brian Singer at the dangle, the character of Booyan Rhapsody. So I'm like, how do I say no to that?
• 2:19
  And so then, you know, the rest of the story, you know. Um, but I didn't end up writing the score,
• 2:23
  actually, because I didn't feel a score would be appropriate, you know, it was sort of date,
• 2:28
  date to film, you know, so I used all the tracks with clean and so forth.
• 2:33
  Of course, of course. And the breadth of your work is fantastic. I mean, you mentioned Booyan Rhapsody,
• 2:37
  of course, which you got the Oscar for the best editing. But also, as I say, X-Men,
• 2:41
  the XR movies, X2, Days of Future Past, Apocalypse, you know, Superman Returns,
• 2:46
  usual suspects, the nice guys that have a great score and Kiscus Bam Bam. You've,
• 2:50
  you've done so much fantastic work. And, and looking back over your career in the run up to this
• 2:54
  chat, it was extraordinary to me how you've been able to balance those two disciplines throughout
• 2:59
  your career of being a film editor and composer, because we've had, you know, film editors and
• 3:04
  film composers on this pod, you know, separately over the years. And like the amount of work that
• 3:09
  goes into both of those disciplines, where, you know, when it comes to film and television and
• 3:13
  beyond, you know, is extraordinary. So to be chatting to someone who can, he does both at the same
• 3:18
  time on huge scale movies is quite extraordinary. So I hear, so I hear what you're saying when you
• 3:24
  just said there about how I guess did it feel like you're ever going to explode when doing all that
• 3:28
  work? Yeah, I mean, I would lose like 25 pounds in a bad way. I would believe those films,
• 3:34
  I looked like Skeletor, you know, so I just like, you know, there's only so many years I can keep
• 3:38
  doing both those jobs. And I was doing three times, three jobs as well. I've sometimes I was producing
• 3:43
  as well and take up the slack for certain video secrets he's going on behind the scenes. So, you
• 3:48
  know, it was quite a, quite a ride. And then, you know, my story goes, you know, every time that,
• 3:56
  we had a lull between projects I was trying to put films together to direct. And then just when
• 4:01
  something would start taking off, Brian would come up with a dangling carrot again and saying,
• 4:05
  you know, you want to ride a big giant film score, you know, blah, blah, and I would just take the
• 4:08
  carrot, you know. And so, because you don't know that, you know, directing, getting films off the
• 4:13
  ground was a crack shoot. So, and you got a sure thing, you know, take it so that I would go back to
• 4:18
  editing jail for another year or two, depending on what the film was. And, you know, it was a weird
• 4:24
  career because, you know, I went to this BMI dinner one day, which is, I mean, I would go every
• 4:29
  year, which is where the composers get this little award for all these, for the films they do
• 4:34
  that make a good box office. It's really a weird award ceremony. It's based on money only.
• 4:40
  It's like, if you did a film worth, you know, it made so much money in an award. But, I would sit
• 4:44
  at that dinner and, you know, and the composers around you had had four or five of those things,
• 4:49
  putting on the table, you know, and each of those represents all these royalties in the future.
• 4:54
  And I have, I get my one because I put on a trap on a film as the editor for two years, you know,
• 4:59
  and I'm like, well, when am I doing, you know, but, I don't know, it was great to be in control
• 5:06
  of something, though. I tend to sort of, you know, like be able to be at the top of totem pole.
• 5:13
  And so when you're just a lowly composer sometimes, when I'm a film not cutting, it's to be frustrating.
• 5:18
  So, you know, but that glee of being in control lasts for about a couple of months. And I'm
• 5:25
  then I'm over. It's like, then I got other, you know, years or more to go. So, yeah, anyway,
• 5:30
  so I sort of like been avoiding that situation recently until I got reeled into the Michael Jackson
• 5:37
  thing, you know. Of course, of course. And before we go, I must say that we were talking before
• 5:43
  we started, but like the whole film posters behind you are fantastic. I mean, would you mind walking
• 5:48
  us through what you've got behind you there? Some sci-fi? Yeah, well, you know, I wanted to get a
• 5:52
  foreign version of all these posters, but they were really tiny. And I had this big wall behind me.
• 5:55
  So I blew them up on Candace. And so, you know, you have the, I think the German closing commers.
• 6:01
  And I don't know, like, I think that's, uh, do the wish foots still. And what is that like there?
• 6:08
  I forgot. And Chinese took out one and a spathic Spanish, uh, the plenty of the apes.
• 6:15
  So, yeah, we're seeing it's like I, you know, I've always been my whole life a sci-fi guy,
• 6:20
  this, you know, watching Star Trek. And, uh, and, and all the films I would make were revenge movies
• 6:25
  or thrillers. And so it's sort of funny that I got, you know, uh, you know, into this biopic
• 6:32
  world, you know, it's sort of similar to when I got into the X-Men world. And then at doing
• 6:36
  Superman and scoring those fantastic four films, I'd never pick up a comic book in my life. And so,
• 6:42
  you know, it's funny how you get, you get, uh, you suddenly known in this world for, for being
• 6:47
  the expert or whatever in this particular thing. Um, but, um, you know, but, you know, it's,
• 6:53
  it's, uh, you know, one of my guilty ignitions was that, and this is going to be shocking. I know
• 6:56
  the most people, uh, probably as I was just just neuro-listing to Jared Goldsmith and John Williams
• 7:01
  and hearing things in the radio, but not really being fanned. I, I somehow got through life,
• 7:07
  not really being cognizant of Bohemian rhapsody, the song. And so what I started to film,
• 7:14
  really, you know, but it, but it's sort of a, it sort of makes sense because, you know, when I
• 7:18
  get on a film, I just, I just immersed myself as a director would into a subject matter. And so,
• 7:23
  he become, uh, more of a fan and expert in that particular band or, or, or, or, or in this,
• 7:29
  or, or in the case of the superhero films X-Men and so forth. Um, you really just dive into the
• 7:34
  world and, and, um, and you just want to tell us good story, you know, though, I was the Michael
• 7:39
  Jack, a fan, I guess, but not, I wasn't like running the concerts and so forth. I know all this
• 7:44
  music happened, you know, right? But it wasn't, I wasn't running on getting albums. And so, again,
• 7:48
  I just wanted to make a good film that, that was entertaining to people and everyone knows the,
• 7:54
  well, not everyone, but a lot of people know the debacle that happened on the film, you know,
• 7:58
  where they had to lock off the other half of the movie. So, um, by the time I came in, which was
• 8:03
  after they had cut, been cutting for a year and a half this new version. Um, uh, you know, I,
• 8:10
  I saw a film at the beginning, no ending and, um, not much story there. So, um, that's really
• 8:15
  was an exercise and how to make a film, um, engaging and, and, and just touching as you can with, uh,
• 8:24
  a story that's basically one storyline, um, I need to get away from my dad, you know, so, um,
• 8:31
  there was a tough, tough project, yeah. Yeah. Well, I did want to ask her out the Michael,
• 8:35
  the Jackson project because, of course, you'd cut the human rhapsody and, uh, I mean, this is
• 8:40
  actually your, I want to say this is your first, uh, film feature film cutting a job in, uh,
• 8:43
  in several years. Are that right? Am I right in saying that? Every since we're human rhapsody,
• 8:47
  yeah, because, uh, like I told you, I just been trying to get fills off the ground, which is a
• 8:51
  full-time job for something that may never happen, but that's what I do. Um, that's what I committed
• 8:56
  myself to do in my life. I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, make the money for my career
• 9:02
  and then so I can afford to just pursue the things I want to do. Um, so I, I originally initially
• 9:07
  said no to Michael. I, I mean, it must have been two years ago that Grand King brought me to the
• 9:12
  set to meet Fuquan and, uh, you know, wanted me to do it. And I just, I just, I didn't want to go
• 9:19
  down. I didn't want to be an editing jail for, for a year or so. And so, um, I did this,
• 9:27
  I know, I haven't told many people this. I mean, the people know this on the film. I did this
• 9:30
  Larry David thing where I, um, I scheduled open heart surgery to get out of it.
• 9:37
  Wow. I had this aneurysm in my aorta. I don't have any heart disease, but I had this aneurysm.
• 9:43
  And those things can pop down the road. So I was like, oh, this is a good time to, to schedule that,
• 9:48
  you know, um, I mean, I had to have it done anyway. So, um, so I, I come kind of joking. But,
• 9:53
  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
• 9:59
  from Graham. And this is, can you come look at the film? He knew, he knew it. I didn't want the job.
• 10:04
  So anything I said, it was the truth. I know it's like, you know, and I, and I said, look,
• 10:08
  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
• 10:13
  to help out. Um, and, um, because I really felt it needed some more humor and the structure was
• 10:19
  strange to me. Um, and, um, and I just didn't, you didn't feel anything for Michael at all.
• 10:26
  So I went in there, worked a couple of weeks and grand saw what I was doing and was happy with
• 10:31
  the so basically I ended up taking it with the film and recutting it. His whole childhood is by
• 10:36
  one of my favorite parts of the film, um, with a, with Juliano. It was so talented. I mean, of course,
• 10:41
  Jafar's off the scales, but Juliano really is a fantastic, uh, performer and they're both,
• 10:46
  it's never done this before in the life, which is amazing, you know, but that, that first 25 minutes
• 10:52
  or so was all voiceover over over the Juliano scenes and it just, where you're over and involved
• 10:59
  in it at all, you're kind of watching. I mean, I make this analogy, no one seems to get, but I'll
• 11:03
  keep using it. It was like I was watching people swim in the pool, but not in the pool myself
• 11:07
  swimming around. You know, so I wanted to be, you know, you want to be in those scenes and
• 11:10
  experience them in real time, even though I kept that a clip. So my mission was to sort of
• 11:16
  resurrect all those scenes with in his childhood and tell them, you know, without having some sort
• 11:22
  of voiceover over them. And, um, and that was a, and I said, I'll do it the same amount of time.
• 11:27
  I'll tell the store without voiceover 25 minutes, you know, uh, but the first, that first act. So,
• 11:33
  that was one of the first things I did. And, um, anyway, this went from there and, and just doing,
• 11:39
  doing how I saw the film to try to, you know, it really was an exercise and how to take a really
• 11:45
  simple story and try to keep it engaging for the audience, you know, and it, having been your
• 11:51
  first editing job in several years, because as you were saying, you, you want to try to get films
• 11:55
  off the ground as a director. I mean, what was it like coming back into the editing room after
• 11:58
  several years on such a big project? You know, I think I'm getting like, forget how the
• 12:02
  avid works, you know, you know, but it's like riding a bike. It comes right back to you, you know,
• 12:08
  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
• 12:14
  never leave my chair, you know, I eat for 10 minutes and come back and it's really not good for you,
• 12:18
  but that's what I do, um, because I just want to be in the zone, you know, and the thing it takes
• 12:23
  out of me out of the zone, especially when I'm writing music is technical problems, because I'm
• 12:27
  just not a technical person, you know, and that just sort of knocks you out and makes you cry,
• 12:32
  and it's like, you know, you feel helpless because the computers are controlled my life, and I have
• 12:36
  no understanding how they work, you know, it's like I lift the hood up my car, no idea how it works.
• 12:41
  So I just, I'm intimidated by it and I say my computers, I really don't know how they work,
• 12:45
  it's just magic, you know, so, um, and with at least with the avid, it's very strong, it's very,
• 12:50
  very, um, which I could solid, it doesn't really crash much or anything and, and you have assistance
• 12:56
  there, like, you know, how do you do this effect, whatever, you know, it's, it's, it's like
• 13:00
  anything, if you think it, you can do it, you know, especially now with, uh, with digital technology
• 13:05
  and AI and visual effects and it's just money, and so if I imagine something, I could probably do
• 13:11
  it if we have the money at the time, you know, you don't want to be a crop, a, a crux because you
• 13:17
  want to, you should solve things editorally without just saying, oh, this is going to shoot something,
• 13:21
  but, um, or, or, or, or, or do some big visual effects or something, but, but it's nice to be able to
• 13:26
  have, um, those resources so that you can imagine something to make it happen, you know, and I did,
• 13:33
  I did suggest a few things that we, they went and shot to sort of help, um, this, this alternate
• 13:38
  version, you know, and they had shot a bunch of stuff before I came on after they had to, uh,
• 13:44
  lop off the second half of the film, yeah.
• 13:47
  Because that's something that people don't always talk about with editors, is that so much of
• 13:50
  what the editors suggest in terms of, oh, we might need this piece or this scene, it was really
• 13:55
  instrumental to the film. I mean, with your example of your work on Beheaming Rhapsody,
• 13:58
  the scene in, with Freddie Mercury at the bus stop, quiet in the first act, that was your
• 14:02
  suggestion, I want to say, right? So with this one, it was a similar, was it a similar kind of
• 14:05
  situation? Right. Yeah. Well, beholding Rhapsody, there was a whole sequence we did, which was
• 14:10
  this amazing, I've talked about this before. So if people have heard it already, whatever, but
• 14:15
  it was this amazing dream sequence and, um, and, uh, in the cool visuals, it was an allegory to,
• 14:23
  to, um, there was this big pit and, I know, I can't really describe it, but it was done to, um,
• 14:29
  that song, um, I would live forever, that's the name of the song, um, and it was magnificent.
• 14:36
  And I sold this thing to Brian Maine, everyone, and it was like, yeah, you know, and so we do the,
• 14:41
  the, the pre-visual, Jason pre-visualization of it, we shoot the elements for Freddie Mercury with,
• 14:45
  with Rami and so forth, and we're just jazzed about it, you know, and, um, there was a segment of it,
• 14:51
  where it's all these, um, people lined up around this pit and they all have these guns on their
• 14:55
  hand. That sounds crazy, but it was really beautiful. And they all screwed their guns and these bullets
• 15:00
  are going past Freddie Mercury, but then one hits. And the allegory was that, you know, out of all
• 15:07
  the sexual partners he had, one was bound to, you know, infect him, but it wasn't really done
• 15:12
  literally, was it, it was, it was allegory. And it was really, like I said, it was really beautiful
• 15:16
  into the music, it was epic, we could really full throttle the music, and we showed it to, uh,
• 15:20
  test audience. And they were angry, because they were like, you're slut-shaming Freddie Mercury,
• 15:28
  you know, and it's like, we did not expect that response at all, um, you know, and so we,
• 15:33
  we, now I'm left with like this song, I got it for this film, you know, and, um, because I,
• 15:40
  it needs to be, they don't need it to be some sort of a decision-making for him before going to
• 15:45
  the doctor to check himself out, because he knew something was wrong, probably knew he had AIDS,
• 15:49
  but was in denial. And so there had to be a moment for him to make this decision, and that dream
• 15:56
  was that decision. So then I had to, then I thought, what do I do? So I, so I storyboarded all of these
• 16:01
  things he goes and do, you know, he's, he's having, um, uh, breakfast, and this cat's on the table,
• 16:07
  you know, he's in the mirror, you know, like just, just, you know, the, the typical, a walk-in-long
• 16:11
  the beach kind of thing, except without doing the little walk-in-long the beach, you know,
• 16:14
  so I, I wrote all those things, and then was there on the set with Dexter, um,
• 16:18
  flexure, who came on the last few weeks of filming, and shot those things, yeah. So there are things
• 16:23
  that, you know, um, sometimes out of complete necessity you have to do, and sometimes just out of
• 16:28
  like, you know, band-aids that you want to come up with and help the story, you know, I, I had suggested
• 16:33
  Michael watching TV with his mother a lot when I came on, so we, we shot some of that stuff, um,
• 16:39
  to sort of create some sort of, uh, bond with them, um, and, and also show that he's learning through
• 16:45
  watching, uh, Fred Stere, or, you know, stuff, um, on TV, you know, not Fred Stere, the singing
• 16:52
  and the rain guy, um, Jean Kelly. Jean Kelly, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hi. Yeah. And,
• 16:59
  and because I'm talking about being Rhapsody in relation to Michael, because, uh, because you
• 17:04
  mentioned Brian May there, I mean, I know that the Brian May and Roger Taylor had a, there was
• 17:08
  something of a, of a presence of them on the, in the post of, um, of Bowen Rhapsody. Like, I know,
• 17:14
  Brian May was particularly keen on playing the 20th Century Fox fanfare on his, on his, you know,
• 17:18
  guitar. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was quite a story. Um, you know, they were super, I mean, they,
• 17:22
  they really had a lot of trust in post. They came in once in a while to look at some concert scenes
• 17:26
  and, um, and we're very respectful and I, you know, I tell this like, you know, you have to make cuts
• 17:32
  in these scenes. You have to, you can't play the whole songs, of course, that the narrative would
• 17:36
  just fail. And so, um, the place that to cut for me were when Brian May was noodling on his
• 17:43
  guitar. That's, that's a great place I can cut because he not really cutting the structure of the
• 17:47
  song. And so he come in and go, can you just put a little bit of that more of that back, you know,
• 17:52
  so, so, but the, but he understood why I had to do that. So they were, they were really respectful
• 17:57
  of that. But yeah, funny situation. So Brian, making up with a great idea for the, for the, um,
• 18:02
  for the logo, uh, in front of the film, the Fox, 20th Century Fox thing. And he had never really
• 18:09
  been on a film dub stage before. And he was so, because he's very, he's a very, uh, you know,
• 18:15
  technical guy, you know, and he's intrigued by technology and so forth. And he was so intrigued
• 18:19
  by the surround sound system, you know, and, um, and, and at most all that kind of stuff.
• 18:26
  And so we, we mixed that music you did and then he started, he went home and started thinking
• 18:31
  about surrounds. So then he comes back and we have very little time to, to, to finish the sound of
• 18:36
  this film. And he comes back and says, well, what if we like, you know, have it, you know,
• 18:40
  over here and they shoot across the room there and do that. And so we ended up spending an entire
• 18:46
  day of a two week mix on the logo music. But panning now, let's do it. This way is like, I remember
• 18:55
  watching Paul Massey are, um, our sound mix are just like, oh my god, what are we going to do
• 19:00
  because we have to move on, you know, but, but in the end, it sounds fantastic. And, um, and,
• 19:05
  but it was a funny story, you know, yeah, and it ended up on the album on the soundtrack album
• 19:09
  for the film. So, yeah, I mean, it's stuck. It definitely stuck. And, I mean, and linking that
• 19:14
  then to Michael, I mean, because as I say, Brian and Roger work, something of a presence. I mean,
• 19:18
  were the jack was a jackson estate to tell the presence in the post on, uh, on Michael.
• 19:22
  Well, not not physically. No, I mean, I know the gram, um, that was one of his major, uh, jobs as
• 19:28
  to is to be, you know, deal with them from the very beginning. I mean, he went to them, I believe,
• 19:33
  and got this, this, this being with project off the ground, you know, that he had a vision for.
• 19:38
  I remember him telling me about this years ago, you know, you know, you know, and it's really funny
• 19:43
  how it's, it's, it means our time, you hear someone say something, I have an idea for something,
• 19:47
  maybe we'll do this, you know, maybe I'll, I'll, I'll do this and buy a pick on Michael Jackson.
• 19:51
  And then like, you know, you know, a couple of years later, he sends me like, what do you think
• 19:54
  of this guy? You know, he shows me, you know, Jafar on my, on the iPhone, I'm like, oh yeah,
• 19:59
  that's, that's promising, you know, and suddenly, it's suddenly, it's a movie, you know, it's,
• 20:03
  it's, it's pretty amazing. It's quite, I mean, Kudos to him. He's just like a force of nature
• 20:07
  to get this thing off the ground and have it completed, you know, but he was the man who was sort of,
• 20:12
  I guess, dealing with the machinations behind the scenes of like, yeah, the, what you did,
• 20:15
  you stay, you said everything. You know, it's, uh, well, you know, I won't go into it, but there's,
• 20:21
  you know, you had to make a lot, you got to make a lot of people happy, um, uh, when you're making
• 20:25
  a film about, uh, a family member and, and, and it's, it's quite a, uh, a, it's quite a thing to
• 20:32
  navigate for, for, for Brown, you know, it's, uh, but I didn't have to do that. I just was told,
• 20:37
  okay, we can't do this or that because of someone thinks this and so that became, um,
• 20:42
  it just yet another, uh, difficulty in making the film, you know, for sure. But now that, I mean,
• 20:47
  now the movie's out, how does it feel now to finally have this thing out in the world?
• 20:51
  Well, I mean, the big relief was just when we finished it. So it's just the same way. And I'm,
• 20:56
  I'm glad though it's doing well, you know, um, you know, it's, uh, you know, I know that, uh,
• 21:02
  obviously got slammed for, uh, for, uh, you know, it's the, the simplicity of the story, but I think,
• 21:07
  uh, again, it's experienced and it's a celebration of, of Michael and his talent. And I think that's,
• 21:13
  I think that's the most people are taking away from it and why they're, why they're, um,
• 21:17
  having a good time with England back and seeing it again, which is always the good side, you know,
• 21:23
  it's interesting though. So, I mean, going more broadly, uh, on your approach to what you do as
• 21:28
  a, as an editor, I guess nowadays you're more of a full-time editor, but over the course of your
• 21:32
  career being an editor in composer. As I said, at the start, we've had sort of composers on the
• 21:36
  show and editors separately. And something I've asked them is what makes a good editor or what makes
• 21:40
  a good composer? And they always have a, like a, a very sort of like in-depth answer, a multi,
• 21:46
  which is multifaceted about what makes a good composer. To me, it's one of those. It's a simple answer.
• 21:52
  Well, my, my answer is simple, it sounds very cliche, but it's basically, um, you just have to be a
• 21:57
  good storyteller as a composer. If you're, if you're a good storyteller, um, that's, that's, that's,
• 22:02
  that's almost more important than any musicals, uh, music theory or classes you took or whatever,
• 22:09
  you know, and it's the same obviously with a, with the editor or your challenge story, you know,
• 22:13
  so the better storytelling you are. And surprisingly, you know, there are some editors who,
• 22:16
  who are good at, um, uh, making cool little cuts, but they're not, you know, it's, the, the,
• 22:22
  the main talent of editing is what people think about, and that is them, is stepping back.
• 22:27
  And the macro view of the movie has a feeling, is it, what's, how's the ebb and flow going?
• 22:31
  Is it dragging here or whatever? Am I, am I, do I care here? And so that's, that's the biggest
• 22:36
  job of a good editor, because that's telling the story. You know, you can die, you can then, then
• 22:42
  you can focus in, you can through micros go in and look at certain scenes and how snazzy they were
• 22:47
  a cool, but, but, uh, and that's very important as well and how you accomplish pulling off a scene,
• 22:52
  but collectively, I think, um, it has to work. And it's the same with a composer, you know,
• 22:57
  what are you doing? You're telling a story, a score, you should be hearing a story being
• 23:01
  untold, which is harder today because scores are not as lyrical or, or melodic as they used to be,
• 23:07
  to sort of revisit motifs and so forth. I'm here, here, this composer trying to tell some sort
• 23:14
  of story, you know, um, you know, anyway, anyways, you got to be a good storyteller, you know,
• 23:20
  because a lot of composers who know music theory in and out and more than I do, you know, um,
• 23:26
  you know, I know some composers who struggle and they get a scene about how to, uh,
• 23:30
  bring out the subtext and understand what they're supposed to be doing, you know, and they start
• 23:35
  listening to other things, to see what they, what they could maybe be inspired by, and I go just,
• 23:40
  just watch the scene with nothing and, and ask yourself, what does the scene about? You know,
• 23:45
  what, what is it lacking? You know, what, what does it need? You know, so, um, you know, it's like the,
• 23:50
  the force thing, unlearn, what does Obi-Wan Kenobi say? Unlearn what you have learned. You know,
• 23:55
  if you get all that, all those classes you took just sort of like sit down and, and, and, and,
• 24:01
  take it in and then try to, you know, and try to, um, communicate the story to people, you know.
• 24:08
  Yeah, I mean, but as, as I say there, you're someone who has done both of those jobs at the same time
• 24:13
  on, on huge movies, and I mean, you're one of the very few people in the history of films who can
• 24:18
  say that. I mean, I know there are people, there are filmmakers who have done editing, and then,
• 24:22
  you know, I mean, I guess you could say John Carpenter as always, you know, did music on his films,
• 24:25
  and then would have been in the editing room. Right, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you're one of the
• 24:30
  few struggles. He's straddled both, which is, I just wanted to write scores, you know, and when
• 24:37
  we did the usual suspects, uh, well, I before put the usual suspects together, I told Brian,
• 24:42
  because we did a previous movie that won Sundance, and I'd scored it also, and no one would have
• 24:46
  done that before, uh, with the editing and scoring. And so I said, look, I just want to write film
• 24:50
  scores. And he said, you're never going to write a film score for me unless you're the editor.
• 24:55
  And so that's how the black male began. And so, uh, I didn't have a choice. You know, I mean,
• 25:02
  in one way, you know, I, I knew the film weren't really anyone as the composer, you know, um, because
• 25:07
  I was constructing it in many times, I had to sort of make myself step back from that and get it,
• 25:13
  you know, and get a fresh light on it because I was so in it, you know, um, but yeah, that's how that
• 25:19
  happens. And um, it's for better force, you know. Yeah. And I guess like, how do you like, just like
• 25:26
  say, the amount of work that that goes into being an editor or a composer, like, how do you
• 25:29
  personally, what strategies did you develop over the years for just not a, like, I guess,
• 25:33
  getting in top of you? Tell your friends, you'll see that in a year or a year and a half, and I'm
• 25:39
  sort of not exaggerating. Um, you know, don't go to dinner, don't go to movies, don't, I mean,
• 25:44
  basically, it's, it's, it's your life. I mean, it's like, there's no way I could have done that.
• 25:49
  Um, unless it just became my entire world. And so, um, uh, you know, and this is before the days
• 25:56
  of ghost writers and, you know, now composers have like a team of 10 or 15 and 50 people, you know,
• 26:02
  and they're sort of like the point man. Um, and I'm just come from another generation,
• 26:08
  where that was like unthinkable to me, you know, um, you know, in the last, you know,
• 26:13
  last few years of my, uh, composing actually, you know, I, I got some help. I'm a couple of
• 26:18
  cues here and there and I would direct, you know, um, a couple pieces of music with some people
• 26:24
  I know, and it's like, um, um, you know, I feel sorry for them as they rewrite a queue like
• 26:30
  fucking 10 times, you know, for me, but, um, but it did save my ass in, uh, in some, in a couple
• 26:36
  films that was on like Jack, a giant slayer and that thing was went on forever and it was just a,
• 26:41
  um, I was just like so despondent because I'd been there for so long and I was exhausted and I had
• 26:46
  to write this enormous score. And so there were a couple scenes where I, I, um, I found these guys
• 26:51
  and they helped me out and I felt so indebted to them. And, um, uh, I, I felt sorry for them also
• 26:56
  is I should rewrite stuff for so many times, but, um, but that's basically that's the model now.
• 27:01
  You basically have a team of people and, and, and this is why I think this coming to get onto one
• 27:06
  of my soap box issues, but the, the tragedy of that is that no matter how much of a good
• 27:12
  teacher embossed you are of a, say, a composing company like that, which they are now,
• 27:18
  you're never gonna hear, I don't, I don't, it's like when you hear a John Berry score, you know,
• 27:23
  it's John Berry. When you hear a Jerry Golds the score, you know, that's Jerry Golds, but no matter how
• 27:28
  prolific he was and different styles he did, you knew it was him because the, if his sensibilities,
• 27:33
  you knew that John Williams score when you heard it. Uh, you know, an area, any more Coney's score
• 27:38
  when you hear it. Today, I defy anyone to say, oh, that's a so and so score because they have
• 27:43
  a team of people and, and almost they have to win away because of how fast moving things are
• 27:48
  and how fast people want changes and so forth, but it's really, it's really a shame, you know.
• 27:52
  Yeah, I'd agree. I mean, I've, I've been talking to the composers on this podcast, um, about this kind of,
• 27:57
  these kinds of issues and these kinds of problems that I guess have come up in the industry.
• 28:00
  And I know what you mean, it's harder. I feel like one of the things, as you said earlier,
• 28:03
  like melodies become less and less valued so that catchy melodies and memorable melodies are just
• 28:08
  not really stock as less stock and trade these days. I think that's a, I think there's this
• 28:12
  misconception that, well, if we have melodic scores, it's gonna, it's gonna be dated. It's gonna sound
• 28:16
  old. That's the, you know, and that's not true. It's how you do that. You know, um, you can have
• 28:21
  scored motifs and melodies as long as you, you do it in a way that's, that's tasteful for today.
• 28:27
  It doesn't feel dated, you know. Um, and also the nature of films are different. You know,
• 28:31
  you know, we don't have, uh, out of Africa where we're going to show a landscape for three minutes
• 28:36
  and let the composer do a thing. You know, we don't have, well, people are probably thankful for
• 28:42
  this, but for me as a big Star Trek fan, you don't have a four-minute sequence flying around the
• 28:45
  enterprise and Starship promotion picture, you know, uh, worshiping in this, this ship, um,
• 28:50
  you know, I defy a lot of film composers today of how to, how to support that scene of four minutes
• 28:55
  of music and you have to tell a musical story and, um, uh, you can always like the Star Trek
• 29:01
  Fused. I'll just go on forever. So I'll try to hold myself back. But I always use the enterprise
• 29:06
  incident from Star Trek Moshe picture as, and I need to bring it to film scoring classes and so
• 29:11
  forth because, um, it demands from the composer a skill set of telling a story for four minutes
• 29:19
  and now composers are so brought up on short motifs and ostinatos going da, da, da, da, da, da, da,
• 29:26
  da, da, da, da, da, da. Like, how do you, how are you gonna do that for four minutes
• 29:31
  when you, when you introduce the enterprise? You know, and so Gohlsp an had to tell a story that
• 29:36
  had beginning, middle, and end, and very revisited motifs, and it felt like it was going somewhere
• 29:41
  the whole time.
• 29:42
  That's a highly difficult thing to do, even he failed the first pass on that scene.
• 29:47
  He scored that entire sequence, and Robert Wise, you know, watched it, and he goes, and
• 29:52
  literally this is what he said, to Joltz Goldsmith, he says, where's the fucking theme?
• 29:57
  Because there was no theme that Goldsmith had to sort of revisit and tell this story,
• 30:01
  and Goldsmith tells the story himself, and how he failed, because without pre-writing
• 30:06
  a really full-fledged theme, he couldn't go back to the well, and sort of like tell the
• 30:12
  story.
• 30:13
  He was just, he was noodling the whole time, you know, like, you know, just trying to
• 30:17
  fill space, you know, and it's really beautiful what he did, but it's varied beandering.
• 30:21
  So that's the importance of writing a theme, writing the themes out first, you know, even
• 30:28
  if you don't ever use the full theme in the movie, it's like, I couldn't write a score
• 30:33
  unless I had written all my themes out, the ones I felt are going to be important, and
• 30:37
  then draw from them to write the score, otherwise I'd be completely lost.
• 30:40
  And it's a discipline, because it's like, this is one of the other lectures I give editors
• 30:46
  and composers, it's like, you know, the agony pays off for an editor who is pressured to
• 30:53
  cut the scene now, because they need to know whether they could cut, they could tear down
• 30:56
  the set or whatever.
• 30:58
  The impetus would be to start cutting them out without watching the footage or watching
• 31:02
  most of it, just put something together.
• 31:05
  And I give this whole speech, maybe I won't bore you with now, about why that's a mistake.
• 31:10
  And so I sit there and I watch every frame, and I watch the evolution on the set of what
• 31:15
  they did throughout that whole day to understand what happened, what may have been overthinking,
• 31:19
  and maybe the original stuff was better, maybe that I blinked at Twitch, that guy did
• 31:23
  the first take of the first day, or the first hours of that day were better than the last
• 31:27
  thing I did.
• 31:28
  Anyway, so I marked every lightning in the bottle moment of that day of shooting, and
• 31:37
  then I cut the scene, and you think like, wow, you must really be behind at that point,
• 31:42
  but no, I'm not, because while you're watching all that footage, your brain is lately thinking
• 31:48
  of what that scene should be.
• 31:50
  You know, rather than just take footage and start slapping these up with no vision of
• 31:53
  what that scene should be or not, just kind of winging it, by the time you're done watching
• 31:57
  hours and hours and hours of footage, that scene is in your head.
• 32:01
  And it had to be back of the day when I was cutting in film, because I couldn't just throw
• 32:04
  different versions up.
• 32:05
  You had to pre-think what this scene is going to be, so so laborious just to cut this
• 32:10
  scene together.
• 32:11
  And so then when I cut my scene, I cut it together like that, super fast.
• 32:16
  And so I make up the time, or even less time, people say you cut so fast, I like really,
• 32:21
  because I sit there for hours watching this fucking footage, you know, but it does maybe
• 32:25
  because you have an immediate vision and it is very quickly.
• 32:29
  It's quick, and it's very the same thing with music.
• 32:32
  If you spend that agony, you want to start scoring the movie, right?
• 32:36
  But no, spend a couple of days and write those themes out.
• 32:39
  And then when you start scoring the film, you'll score like that, because it'll make
• 32:44
  sense to you.
• 32:45
  And so it's worth that discipline, that agonizing discipline, that I give my short version
• 32:50
  of my big, long, so-box for that image.
• 32:54
  No, I'm here for it.
• 32:55
  I'm here for it, mate.
• 32:56
  It's great.
• 32:57
  I mean, there's so much in your sort of music and in your editing to explore.
• 33:02
  But I mean, something that you mentioned before was your work on usual suspects, which
• 33:05
  I guess in many ways was the breakthrough you could argue for, I guess you as a composer
• 33:09
  and editor.
• 33:10
  I mean, it was kind of a launching pad for so many people's work.
• 33:13
  I mean, and that film is a film that has such a sort of willfully playful kind of
• 33:17
  labyrinthine structure.
• 33:19
  And as the editor putting that together, and also as the composer, underscoring that,
• 33:23
  what was that like putting that sort of very labyrinthine structure together on screen?
• 33:27
  Well, like I say before, it's like, you know, you can't, you couldn't easily change things
• 33:31
  back then when you're cutting on film.
• 33:32
  I mean, it's like, you're splicing things together with tape and everything, and you're
• 33:36
  having these piece of film in there.
• 33:38
  They're all on piles, they're all with the floor, you know?
• 33:40
  And so you just can't say, oh, well, just do this version.
• 33:42
  You don't do that version.
• 33:43
  You can't do that.
• 33:44
  So you really had, so that was back to my speech, you know, about watching all the footage
• 33:48
  and have something ruminating your head.
• 33:51
  And, and, and I don't know really, I look back at how I, I did restructuring so forth
• 33:56
  because it's such a nightmare on film, but I think just going to bed, watching all that
• 34:02
  footage and thinking about it, and knowing what the tent is with the script or what the
• 34:06
  script was trying to do, I would come up with an order of scenes and so forth, you know,
• 34:12
  and then, you know, but the score, the score, yeah, I mean, I was terrified of that one.
• 34:20
  I told you I was terrified on, on X-Men 2 because the size and sheer scope of it.
• 34:25
  On, on suspects, I was terrified because I had never done it before.
• 34:28
  You know, I was writing synthesized, you know, on rudimentary equipment, you know, a
• 34:33
  stuff as a hobby, you know?
• 34:35
  And so, you know, I was terrified that when I got to the stage, it wouldn't sound like
• 34:42
  what I wrote on my, on my synthesized, you know, renderings, you know, it's like this
• 34:46
  is going to sound completely different.
• 34:47
  And so, the amazing thing was, was putting the first cue up on the stage and it's like,
• 34:52
  oh my god, it sounds like what I wrote, you know, except way better, you know, it was,
• 34:56
  it was the most amazing thing, you know, and I did something crazy back then too.
• 35:01
  It's like, and again, it's like if you, it's just, it's just, you can break the rules
• 35:04
  with things, you know, like I'm not really musically trained, I just, I just, I played clarinet
• 35:08
  for years, you know, but I, I self-taught myself and, you know, in film score watching and
• 35:13
  knowing how to tell stories, blah, blah, blah.
• 35:15
  And with usual suspects, I, we couldn't afford to have picture there while we were scoring
• 35:20
  the movie.
• 35:21
  It was just too much of a technical problem, this little teen studio, we were recording
• 35:23
  the scoring.
• 35:25
  And I said, well, logically, if I'm composing to a click and I'm in my studio, it's
• 35:33
  matching picture, then we're, if we're blind on stage, it should be ratching.
• 35:37
  And well, you can't do that.
• 35:39
  You can't, I go, but, but there's no reason why it wouldn't be matched, you know.
• 35:41
  So we, we scored it blind, you know, and so then when we put them, then we, then we
• 35:47
  sink the movie up to it when we were mixing the score and sure enough, everything was
• 35:51
  right on, you know.
• 35:52
  And so, you know, it's just, it's just, there's many ways of skinning the cat, you know,
• 35:58
  as long as you, you know, just, I mean, everyone doubts themselves, but just, that I was
• 36:02
  even, you know, when people tell me you can't do that, I was, I was, they were scaring
• 36:06
  me, but, but I kept thinking, well, there's no way this wouldn't work, you know, so that's
• 36:11
  what we did.
• 36:12
  We also, we're such a small studio.
• 36:14
  We couldn't fit the whole orchestra on there at the, at one time.
• 36:17
  So we did this long scoring sessions where, I mean, many more days because we'd record
• 36:23
  the strings for the whole score for a couple days, then we'd record the brass for a couple
• 36:27
  days, we'd record the percussion.
• 36:30
  And, you know, but the great thing was we ended up having all this amazing separation.
• 36:34
  So, the score sounds pretty, pretty good, you know.
• 36:37
  Yeah, I'll say.
• 36:38
  And am I right in thinking about film you edited it was, it was edited in your living room,
• 36:42
  right?
• 36:43
  In my living room, yeah, yeah.
• 36:44
  Yeah.
• 36:45
  And, you know, I, the romantic notion of cutting on film back, even though I'd never
• 36:49
  do it, you know, now, was that when you presented the film to your first audience or this
• 36:57
  executives or whatever, you knew it had a place to go, you knew it was going someplace,
• 37:02
  but this, by definition, the way it looked, it was a work in progress.
• 37:05
  You know, you see the splice marks, you see the grease pencil marks, over where a fade
• 37:09
  or a dissolve is going to be, you see that blood streaking across the film because I cut
• 37:14
  my finger, you see cat hair, I mean, they'd be cat hair in the splices, they'd be cat,
• 37:18
  you know, it's like in, in the music and the sound was all mineral, there was no stereo
• 37:22
  because it was just butt cut with these mag tracks, you know, magnetic, you know, film with
• 37:27
  spuckets in it.
• 37:28
  I mean, I'm, we're magnetic tape with spucket holes in it, you know, and so it was sort
• 37:34
  of cool and like, imagine how it's going to look with this when the negative is cut.
• 37:40
  Oh, it's, it looks so nice, you know, it's like, you know, and so there was always this
• 37:44
  like step by step improvement constantly, you know, now when you put a test screening
• 37:49
  up or your first cut, it looks so pristine and perfect, you put your dissolves in, you
• 37:53
  make your stereo in 5-1, you can make your sound in 5-1, and it's almost like no imagination
• 37:58
  of where it could go, you know, it's like, well, that's it, you know, this is it, you
• 38:03
  know, and it's like, it's like, it's like that association when you put a bad cue in
• 38:09
  for the, as the first thing that people hear on the scene, well, that's, that must be
• 38:12
  the music that's right then, you know, because, because immediately, the association is
• 38:17
  so strong, you can't imagine something better being on that.
• 38:20
  This is why a lot of bad scores get out there because, you know, an editor and desperation
• 38:24
  will just throw something on, everyone will think, oh, that's the score, composer comes
• 38:28
  on, he's told to rip that off, and then you have some score that's really, really the
• 38:33
  wrong thing for the film or not the best thing, you know, so that's, that's what happens.
• 38:39
  Yeah, I mean, that's a systemic problem of 10 music, isn't it, where like people,
• 38:43
  all editors will just throw temp to the, to the picture just so easily now, and then like
• 38:47
  the composer has to, is basically sort of cajold and to have it forced to compose music
• 38:53
  that sounds like the temp score and, and it gets gone down to, if you're a composer
• 38:57
  who was really a storyteller and has some taste, you'll tell them, hey, well, if you have
• 39:02
  the clout to, if you're a new composer, you go, okay, I'll just do what you say, you
• 39:04
  know, you know, you're fired, right? But, but like, if you got, if you're a composer
• 39:07
  with like some, a clout and, and respect, it's like you come in and say, hey guys, you
• 39:13
  know, I really think this score is masking a storyline that you don't even know is there,
• 39:18
  you know, I've had that happen, I had them strip the, the score out because it's like,
• 39:23
  um, unlike you're, you're covering the movie up with, anyway, that's all going to that
• 39:27
  old detail, but, but yeah, it's, um, so it goes back to, hey, if you're a composer who,
• 39:32
  who really wants to bring the most out of this film and tell the story, you'll tell them
• 39:36
  that, um, this isn't right, you know, I don't know, but as long as you tell the reasons,
• 39:41
  like, oh, this music sucks, you know, I'd write something better, they'll think it's
• 39:45
  your ego, blah, blah, blah. If you, if you'd long as you let them know, there's nothing
• 39:49
  do with that. It has to do with, with the film itself and how you can make it better, you
• 39:53
  know?
• 39:54
  Absolutely. Yeah. And you're an editor who is an composer, but you're in it, I guess
• 39:58
  specifically zeroing in on the editing, like, you're an editor who's, who's cut so many
• 40:01
  fantastic scenes across the career. And with usual suspects, I mean, like, I guess one
• 40:06
  of the key ones is the, the classic, the lineup sequence, which has kind of gone down
• 40:09
  in history is, yeah, yeah. This, this fantastic sequence, which was, I mean, and they're
• 40:14
  even, they're legends about how it was essentially all the actors, none of them could, could
• 40:18
  keep it straight. And so they would be corpse and yeah, I mean, I want us to ask them, what
• 40:22
  do you remember the shooting and the editing of that sequence in particular?
• 40:25
  Yeah, of course. I mean, you know, I just wanted to be, have a reel in it as, and because
• 40:29
  I watched all the footage, I watched all the bloopers and outtakes. And then when I was
• 40:33
  finally done with them, like, well, that's the scene, that, the scene should be they
• 40:37
  can't keep a face, a straight face, you know? So I cut the thing together. And I remember
• 40:42
  Brian coming in and he was like, floored by it. He was like, oh, fuck yeah, you know,
• 40:46
  because he, he didn't, I love, I would love just going off the track and doing something
• 40:50
  and have the director come in and be completely surprised by what I do, you know? And he immediately
• 40:57
  saw the, you know, that, that was the way to go. And, yeah, yeah, because it was originally
• 41:03
  shot, the shot was a straight scene, right? It was shot as just like a serious, but then
• 41:07
  like they just couldn't keep it together. Yeah, it was, it was supposed to be a shorter
• 41:11
  scene, just serious. It's just go through it, you know, basically get a little bit, get
• 41:15
  a, get a, a little spice of each of these guys and move on. And so I, I tried to, like,
• 41:19
  a little, a little more of a meal at it. Yeah. And was it, was it, that was all challenging
• 41:24
  because like, with terms of what you just had to work with technically, like, was it, was
• 41:27
  it challenging to put that together? It's always a talent because you had to create, it's
• 41:31
  like it, it's like you're creating something that didn't exist, of course, and you have
• 41:35
  to create a logic to it. So it doesn't seem random. You have to feel like there's an
• 41:38
  escalation and there's a design, there's a design to something that wasn't designed, you
• 41:42
  know? I did that in a much smaller way in the Mike Meyer scene in Michael because it was,
• 41:48
  he, you know, it was a very straight scene. It was for sort of language. And so I, you
• 41:55
  know, it's what you can do as an editor too, as you, as I looked at the script and a lot
• 41:58
  of the dialogue was at an order. And I want to really save, well, this is not the
• 42:03
  communique part. I'll talk about the drum mat, dramatic arc for a second. When Michael says,
• 42:07
  look, I don't want to be in the back of the bus as a black artist, you know, that came
• 42:10
  so much earlier in the scene. And it didn't really inspire the Mike Meyer's character to
• 42:15
  go, oh, shit, I'm going to call this guy, you know, at CBS or that's at, at MTV. And
• 42:22
  so a lot of the dialogue I reordered and repurposed, you know, I wouldn't like to go in the
• 42:29
  whole whole whole less of them, just this one scene. But then Mike Meyer has did all these
• 42:34
  random things off camera, you know, like, you know, he was telling the crew, he's sorry,
• 42:39
  sorry, he drank that coke because it made him burp, you know? And, and then in a moment
• 42:44
  after the whole scene was finished, after he hang up the phone with the MTV guy and
• 42:48
  says, you know, it looks at Michael, he went into this whole thing about, hey, there's
• 42:53
  a show at New York, if you want to go about these French artists and so forth. And I'm
• 42:57
  like, well, that should be the nervous talk by his waiting for the call from the MTV executive,
• 43:02
  you know? And so a restructed little thing and it uses bloopers. And so that scene was
• 43:08
  a joy for me to put together because it's so like line up scene in usual suspects. It's
• 43:13
  like, you know, I showed that to Graham and he was laughed as head off because was not
• 43:16
  expecting the whole scene to be completely reconceived, you know, in a fun way. And that
• 43:22
  was my mantra too. It was like, we got to put more humor in this movie. And so that
• 43:26
  was one, that was one way I did it with that scene, you know, that's a power of editing.
• 43:31
  You know, there was no reshoots. There was just, there was just reorganizing. And I had
• 43:36
  a couple little off camera lines and so forth, like, like, but hole, you know, and
• 43:42
  there's your kind of like highlight reels as an editor, like, it is the memories that
• 43:46
  you think of, like, oh, yeah, that was a great day. Like getting, because as you say,
• 43:49
  it's all in the editing. That's all in the editing. That's all you know, it seems like
• 43:52
  that's in times that to me are, are why feel the most proud of versus some obviously,
• 44:01
  like, like, bad is like, you know, that was like my mini live aid, right, for this movie.
• 44:06
  And yes, that I kicked ass on that. But, but that's obvious, you know, but, but you don't
• 44:11
  know what I did to be like, my or seen, or there's a scene between Joe and, and, and Don
• 44:17
  King, you know, like that scene, I did a lot, a lot of, like, hanky, panky toilet with
• 44:22
  that as well. And it made a lot of fun, you know, so those are the ones I feel most, most
• 44:27
  rewarding. You know, it's obviously seven, no notices. And of course, you're, you're
• 44:30
  most proud of, you know, it's your best score is for the film, the bomb that no one heard,
• 44:35
  you know, well, actually was going to last you have like a personal favorite of the scores
• 44:39
  you've done, or indeed of the films you've edited, like, in terms of your own work.
• 44:42
  Um, you know, the personal favorite of the scores I did, but I have ones that I think were
• 44:46
  some of my best work that no one heard, you know, like, there's one called incognito, which
• 44:51
  ironically remained is that, you know, it was a movie with Jason Patrick and he's this art
• 44:56
  forger, and he forges his Rembrandt. And there was like, scenes that went on for, I kid you
• 45:00
  not four, five minutes with no dialogue, nothing, just all, all music. And so it's a really music,
• 45:06
  it was a sort of like, uh, here's, here's a, here's a canvas drive like a, like, like,
• 45:10
  white red is symphony. And so that was early in my career, John Badham, uh,
• 45:14
  directed Badham. And um, I just felt like, oh, this is it. This is it. This is going to propel me to,
• 45:20
  to like, you know, a list, whatever. And then the film was never released, you know, because, um,
• 45:26
  the whole film was predicated on Jason Patrick's, um, supposed popularity after they did speed two.
• 45:33
  And it speed two bombed. And so then they couldn't really build off of that. And they, and they
• 45:38
  just put it in the can. Um, you know, and then right after that, one of my, uh, uh, uh, uh,
• 45:43
  uh, uh, score I love. It was snow white with Sigourney Weaver. And Disney saw the film. They were
• 45:49
  horrified by because they don't own snow white, right? But it was so dark, they wanted to go away.
• 45:55
  So they bought it and threw the can. And then they released it and it's go time original a couple
• 46:00
  years later. But um, that was, so both of those back to back were just super devastating for me
• 46:05
  in really my career, you know, um, but yeah, there's, there's like Astro Boy was, is one of my favorite
• 46:10
  scores. Another film that completely tanked, you know, um, and that was just a pure joy for me. In
• 46:16
  fact, it was probably the, the most fun I've ever had on a film score despite how much music it was,
• 46:21
  um, because it was, was happy. I was just, this was on the heels of, of Valkyrie, which was,
• 46:27
  the, which was, you know, execution scene, you know, heavy, serious, you know, and then, um,
• 46:33
  and then this was just pure joy and, um, I could wear my emotions and I sleeve because it was
• 46:38
  animated. And I'm, and of course, I was like, wow, I'm gonna do more animated films now. This
• 46:42
  is gonna be awesome. This is gonna show how I, I got this fucking animation prowess, you know,
• 46:47
  I can, I can do this kick ass score and then it bombed. And so you're only as good as how good
• 46:52
  the film did. You're not gonna get more animation work for a film, the tank. I'm gonna have
• 46:56
  good your score is, you know, um, and the flip side, you know, there are lots of, um, um,
• 47:03
  terrible scores written for great films that, that sort of elevated along with, with the film, you
• 47:09
  know, and they're, and there are, and there are, and there are great scores, um, um, that get written
• 47:14
  to terrible movies, you know, AstroBore wasn't terrible, but it just, it just didn't catch on, yeah.
• 47:20
  Sure. So it's the scores that, in a way, kind of, we're gonna know and guess.
• 47:24
  So in a sense, it's kind of like the scores and the movies that your faves are the ones that
• 47:29
  kind of got away, in a sense, that kind of didn't maybe find the, sort of a lament that goes
• 47:34
  along with them, you know, um, and then sometimes your favorite scores are like, like Cusco Spain
• 47:39
  brings one of favorite scores, right? But, but the mix on it in the movie is so terrible. I can't
• 47:45
  watch it. It makes me want to just want to kick a shotgun and find the mixer. It's like, well,
• 47:50
  how it's like, anyway, but, um, uh, yeah. I mean, well, I was actually going to ask about
• 47:58
  Shane Black, I mean, in your relationship, your working relationship with him. I mean, why,
• 48:00
  why was Cusco Spain bang? Why was the mix on that, such a sort of tricky process? Well, you know,
• 48:05
  I was, you know, I tell composers, and I, and I must have been busy on something. Go to,
• 48:10
  go to the mix. Don't go to the mix because you're going to walk and say, push on my music up,
• 48:14
  but go to the mix and, and, and make a case like, hey, you know, I, I mean, when I go to the mix,
• 48:19
  they don't really, because I'm an editor too, they don't really see the guy walking in with an
• 48:23
  agenda. There's an intelligent crank all the music. In fact, sometimes they tell them to bring it
• 48:27
  back because that wasn't the intent of the music. But, um, I always say, look, you're, you're right
• 48:33
  in the line of involvement here, you know, you're, you're just, you're just under that threshold.
• 48:37
  And so the music now is often one of tactics I use. The music is having the opposite effect.
• 48:41
  It's lolling me. It's not your treating me now. If you, if you, if you just below that threshold,
• 48:46
  if you just, if you just see that threshold a little bit, I'll be involved in the film again,
• 48:50
  and I'll, I'll be sucked in. And I think it's largely true. Despite the fact that Kiske's
• 48:53
  Bang Man is such a good film, um, I, I felt that the score really was just under that line a lot.
• 48:59
  Or there's moments where, where, okay, everyone stopped talking. Now the guys on the sidewalk
• 49:04
  pushed the score up a little bit. Let's, you know, let's, let's have some fun with, but it's just,
• 49:08
  was just flat the whole time. It makes you want to scream, you know. Um, but anyway, uh, yeah,
• 49:13
  but that's one of my favorites. Yeah. Well, it's, it's a cracking score. And I mean,
• 49:19
  and with Shane, like, it's obviously you went on to do the nice guys with him, which is another
• 49:22
  fantastic score. I mean, what's Shane like as a director to work with as a, as compared to some
• 49:27
  of the other directors you've worked with? Um, well, he, he, um, he, he, he, he, he, he's a lot of
• 49:35
  trust in you, you know, um, he can be often a little schizophrenic with his ideas,
• 49:40
  meaning that one today, there's this idea, there's this idea, but it's funny, um, but he's a great
• 49:46
  guy. He's, he's very, um, he's sometimes on like another plane, you know, where you're going to tap
• 49:51
  into what he's thinking. Um, uh, but on those movies, um, it was where the Joel Silver show, um,
• 49:57
  even Shane would admit, you know, Joel Silver basically, um, when he did those movies, it's like,
• 50:03
  um, that's the guy I was working with. And so all of the Joel Silver films, no matter who was
• 50:07
  directing, it was, it was me and Joel Silver in a room, you know, so that's, uh, you know, and I
• 50:13
  guess it's, I mean, it worked for us. He, he, he had a lot of, uh, we had mutual respect for
• 50:18
  another. I was scared to shitless of Joel Silver when I first met him because I heard he was such a monster.
• 50:23
  And, you know, and I heard all these horrible stories that I, I walked in like shaking to my boots,
• 50:26
  like, hi, I'm John Altman, you know, but he ended up being this pussy cat, at least with me, you
• 50:30
  know, but, um, I would hear him yelling at other people, but, but we had a, we had a really good
• 50:36
  relationship. And he comes from the, he came in the old school of film scoring of strong themes,
• 50:40
  melodies, and so forth. That's what he wanted to hear. Um, and he was very sophisticated with film
• 50:44
  music. And so, um, um, I really enjoyed working with them. It just as he, as a later, he had, he
• 50:50
  ended up sort of letting the film mix, uh, he always felt he couldn't hear the dialogue. And so
• 50:55
  everything was started lowered, you know, and, um, uh, anyway. So Joel was kind of more of the,
• 51:03
  the sort of the presence in the room in, in the, in the mixing, composing space rather than
• 51:07
  shame. Yeah, I mean, really in post production, uh, Joel is basically, uh, kind of, I will say he
• 51:14
  takes over, but he's a very hands-on, very, very hands-on producer. And, um, and I respected that
• 51:20
  about him, you know, and how do you, um, I guess, like, mediate that because I think one of the,
• 51:26
  one of the jobs of being a composer and, as I, as I know, is to be in some ways a good psychologist
• 51:30
  and a good reader of people. I mean, how do you mediate that in the room? Well, you know,
• 51:34
  I told all that to both composers and editors, I go, you know, half your job is, is being a diplomat.
• 51:40
  And, uh, for many reasons, explaining why you want something done in diplomatic ways and,
• 51:45
  and not like, no self-serving ways and, and, and really fielding, uh, different people
• 51:50
  with different opinions and really building consensus. I'm a classic example of that is when you
• 51:55
  have a test screen for a film. And then you, and then the next day, you've got 30 people on a
• 52:00
  long table, all with their own agendas, all interpreting the test scores the way they want to say
• 52:05
  that what they meant, you know, if some guy thinks this, this scene should have been cut, well,
• 52:09
  30 people said this one's there for which you've got this scene and you have to remind them,
• 52:13
  well, it was 700 people in the room, you know, and so you got to, you build the consensus. And so
• 52:17
  I, it's very necessary for you to be a diplomat, um, for both of those jobs, especially in my
• 52:23
  situation with, um, with Brian, um, and, and, and in particular, we mean, Rhapsody, you know,
• 52:30
  where I was left as sort of like, um, navigate the film with Graham, you know, and so I was acting
• 52:37
  like the director, where it's less about, um, my editor work and so forth. It's more about, um,
• 52:44
  protecting the taste of the movie and, and, and protecting scenes and so forth. Um, and,
• 52:51
  you know, writing five-page memos at three in the morning because you're worried about,
• 52:55
  you know, to Graham telling him, you don't, don't let the studio do this, blah, blah, blah, you
• 53:00
  know, and then we play really, um, some crafty games, you know, we, we, the, we, the,
• 53:05
  the, we were actually, um, scored very high, um, from the very first reading, but you think we
• 53:11
  had this film in crisis because the studio saw the film as Mamamia and we saw, and Graham and I
• 53:16
  saw the film as something entirely different. And so, um, we placated the studio by cutting a
• 53:23
  couple scenes for a test screening, they wanted to cut. They wanted to cut half the scene out where
• 53:28
  he, where he, this is the band in the living room, which is a great scene. He tells me he doesn't
• 53:32
  want them to be with him anymore and this, and why I want to break free that whole sequence,
• 53:36
  when the studio wanted to cut that out. And so we did the dangerous game of, of testing the film
• 53:43
  with those out. Now, had the score stay the same or gone up, we would have screwed. So we went on
• 53:49
  faith, they would drop and they did substantially. So then we got to put those scenes back. And those
• 53:53
  the games, the games you play, you know, and, um, you know, endless debates and the pleading
• 53:58
  and the, and the explaining, explaining why he needs to be there, why has to be in that form.
• 54:03
  Anyway, it's just, you know, bottom line is you have to be a good communicator. Um, and not
• 54:09
  seeing someone with a gender, but someone who clearly has a vision for the film and, and, um, and
• 54:16
  for the right reasons, you know, I don't know. Absolutely. Yeah. And I didn't want to actually
• 54:21
  ask about, um, what you just said there about the sort of the, I guess the post-production on
• 54:25
  being perhaps because, as we say, you know, Brian was not in the room and Dexter finished the
• 54:30
  film and they went off to do Rocky Man. So in a way, you're kind of the keeper of the flame
• 54:34
  of the film in that situation, which is quite a unique situation to be in. I mean, how do you,
• 54:38
  how did you personally deal with that and navigate that being such a sort of, it's such a key
• 54:43
  position and having to deal with so much? Well, in one way, I was kind of used to it because
• 54:46
  let's just say in the previous couple films with Brian, there was some similar situations where
• 54:52
  he wasn't around a lot, you know, so, um, and that's not unheard of. I'm not going to slam Brian.
• 54:57
  I mean, a lot of times for whatever reason that's a director of all people is, uh, either busy
• 55:04
  preparing for another film or, or for various reasons they're not there. So, um, this was something
• 55:12
  that, um, with the same executive at, at, um, at Fox, um, I was used to doing. So I had battled with,
• 55:19
  not battled with, you know, it battled the wrong word. I had, um, worked with, uh, uh, passionately,
• 55:27
  the Fox executives on two prior films, prior to, um, to, to Boehmeer Absolutely. So they were used to
• 55:33
  my, to me, you know, and, and, and, and, and hash it out. And so, um, it wasn't that different.
• 55:40
  Having said that though, if I really believed in something, um, I'm like, when the X-Men films,
• 55:45
  then Brian would go to battle, forming, and he would, some, you know, I would, you know,
• 55:50
  sick him on the, the executive isn't, and get my way, um, where I didn't have around on this one.
• 55:56
  So, yeah, it was, it was hard, but I, but I'd Graham King, who is, uh, you know, a very heavyweight
• 56:01
  producer. And so, um, you know, uh, we got it done somehow. So it's, this is part of filmmaking,
• 56:08
  which is, which is the, the insane part that, you know, if filmmaking was just like, oh,
• 56:13
  go write a film score. And, um, we'll see you in a couple of months. And, um, you know,
• 56:18
  and then you can just go move on the next thing. You know, happy, happy, happy, you know,
• 56:22
  I'll be writing a lot more scores, adding more films right now. But that's, that's not the way
• 56:26
  filmmaking goes. You know, filmmaking is all about battling, battling, and I know me not in
• 56:31
  the negative term. It's like, you know, it's, it's a creative, um, it's working to create
• 56:35
  if things out with, with, with many people with different ideas and opinions. And, and so,
• 56:39
  again, the bottom line is, my job is to build consensus and kind of guide that consensus
• 56:46
  in the way it wants. Absolutely. And, and after all of that work, I mean, specifically on
• 56:51
  Beaming Rhapsody, of course, you know, like, difficult production, you know, difficult post
• 56:54
  production, you know, all that work. And then, you know, the movie comes out. It's a hit,
• 56:59
  you win your Oscar for best editing. I mean, how did it feel to, I guess, finally,
• 57:02
  have the little gold man after all of that work, after all of that, I guess, turmoil that came
• 57:07
  out of making that film to finally get that. Well, I mean, it, it felt good because that was
• 57:12
  such a bizarre circumstance. And, um, I felt that, um, I deserved it. That's about one, you know,
• 57:21
  but it's hard because you're up against guys who also did an amazing job. God knows what they
• 57:25
  navigated. Um, and to get their films to, to, in the great state they were, you know, they,
• 57:31
  they were terrific editors. So it's always hard that one arbitrarily, uh, it gets picked. But,
• 57:37
  but it does feel like, oh, I was seen. That, you know, that's it. It's like my, my, it's really
• 57:43
  the nomination really. I mean, you want to win, right? But the nomination means a lot because it's
• 57:47
  because the nominations by your peers. It's by the people who see what you're doing, they understand,
• 57:52
  and that's, and that's the most important one. Um, when it goes to the general, you know,
• 57:58
  academy, I really have to really know, you know, how can you know what, what, what, what, what,
• 58:04
  the first of all, they don't know what you dealt with with any editor dealt with, you know,
• 58:07
  it's hard to know. You can only tell if he's edited poorly, but you don't know, um, just with
• 58:12
  the miracles that were performed on a film, you know, um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, I, it's, you know,
• 58:18
  I did funny things. I wasn't really that, I, I sort of a half-slap empty person and I just go
• 58:24
  through life that way. So I never disappointed by anything. I just feel like, you know, it's never
• 58:27
  going to happen if it happens great. And so I was that way with that. And my partner was the one
• 58:32
  who was just like, you know, uh, catatonic the whole evening, you know, it's like, we were sitting
• 58:37
  there and I think Brian name was performing on stage. And I was like, oh, that's, that's pretty
• 58:41
  cool. And I look over to him. He's like, you know, just whole night waiting. You know, it's so,
• 58:46
  it's like, so I, I always have it a good tie, you know, and the funny thing that one memory I have
• 58:50
  of that is like, you know, everyone dreams of getting some Oscar, right? And so as a kid, I was,
• 58:55
  I'd always think it's that ever happened. I'd be so terrified being up there knowing like,
• 59:00
  what a billion people are watching, right? And I, I, it's this fear I had that ever happened
• 59:05
  with what would I do? And you, it's weird. When you're there, I guess especially now, you don't
• 59:11
  see any cameras. It's all automated. You don't know. I couldn't tell you where the cameras were.
• 59:15
  And the room feels much smaller than, than you think it is. And right in the front rows,
• 59:19
  are you, are the people you know that worked on the movie? And so it wasn't, wasn't nervous at all.
• 59:26
  Or I would say at all, but I wasn't that nervous, you know, I've stupidly told the audience,
• 59:31
  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?
• 59:35
  But, but, um, yeah. So the only, the only thing I had nervous about, nervous is about really was,
• 59:43
  there's this thing that Eddie, that Fredy's father tells him about good deeds, good something,
• 59:48
  I can't even remember it. And I knew what now, I knew that if I wanted, I wanted to say that. And,
• 59:54
  and that's the thing it was terrified of. I would forget like I am now exactly what he said. And
• 59:59
  it just came off. You know, thank God came out. Yeah. I guess when you get up there in front of all
• 1:00:04
  those people and you've got the stage, I mean, I guess that's where just when English becomes
• 1:00:08
  a second language is Robert Williams, you said, you know, like, it's, it's like, what do, what?
• 1:00:11
  So I had a, like a rabbit in the headlight. So what do I do? I mean, that's how I think I would,
• 1:00:15
  obviously, react to that. No, you know, it's, it's really there. When you're there and everything,
• 1:00:19
  it's like, uh, but also when you become jaded, you bit around business for a while. It's really,
• 1:00:25
  it's, it's really different situation. Probably if I had one for usual suspects, you know,
• 1:00:28
  or something and walked up there, I'd probably be a different person up there than I was then, you know,
• 1:00:34
  for sure. And, and after you won the Oscar, I mean, because you mentioned earlier, like in between
• 1:00:38
  working on Bo rap and working on Michael, like you were trying to get some film projects on the
• 1:00:42
  ground as a director. I mean, with the Oscar, then, like, I guess in your back pocket, was that kind of,
• 1:00:46
  did that give you fuel to be like, right? Okay. Yeah, I mean, it propelled out and I had this, uh,
• 1:00:52
  this, this amazing script, um, that, that's been around for decades, actually, and, uh, long story
• 1:00:57
  story. And it's about the biopic of the Valdi. And, um, again, I wouldn't expect to be doing that
• 1:01:03
  because I was the sci-fi revenge, revenge film guy, right? But it's like, I read this script and
• 1:01:07
  it's like, this is the frickin' great story. No, no, even if you don't know who Valdi is,
• 1:01:11
  you know, it's not your grand, I mean, and I re-wrote the script to make it sort of like wide appeals.
• 1:01:15
  It's not your grandmother's biopic. It cannot, like, mortal beloved, which was this Beethoven film,
• 1:01:19
  which one of you want to shoot yourself on the head. You know, this was more, it was great. It's
• 1:01:23
  the fantastic story. So I, um, I, I had a set up over it, um, New Regency and then COVID hit and,
• 1:01:30
  and the Regency, New Regency didn't like the direction. I guess that we were rewriting it and,
• 1:01:35
  and the thing fell through. So then, uh, for since then, I've been trying to resurrect it,
• 1:01:39
  but it's very difficult to get a feel like it off the ground because it's not superheroes and
• 1:01:42
  capes or planes exploding. It's, it's about a composer and it's a budget. It's about 35 million,
• 1:01:49
  for shot and hungry for Venice, you know, and, um, so that's really hard to get off the ground.
• 1:01:54
  But there's another one I, I'm working on, which is, uh, um, uh, the site of the low budget
• 1:01:59
  film, which I want, um, it's about the early years of Billy Joel. And just fell into my lap and
• 1:02:03
  I've been working on this ever since. So that's the new thing that, um, I'm trying to get out
• 1:02:08
  the ground and, um, it's, it's, it's an amazing script. Um, it's really just covers Billy Joel
• 1:02:13
  from age of 16 to 23. That's it. And his manager and how it's like a buddy picture. And, um, it's,
• 1:02:20
  I just, I'm just, um, every day I'm working on that to, uh, try to perpetuate it. And, um,
• 1:02:26
  so we'll see what happens, you know, so yeah, as everyone knows, who's trying to get a film off the
• 1:02:32
  ground. It's a full-time job for something that may not get her go, you know, it's like
• 1:02:36
  winning the lottery. But this one, this one, uh, every filmmaker thinks there's no brainer.
• 1:02:40
  How could you not make this movie? Because it's got Billy Joel IP. It's like maybe 15 million
• 1:02:46
  dollars. How can you go wrong? Even if it sucks, you'll make your money back. So this is what I'm
• 1:02:50
  trying to, uh, to do right now. My agents are doing a good job. They're packaging it. We're trying
• 1:02:54
  to find, uh, who that guy would be, you know, um, for sure. And he's Billy Joel. So the music's
• 1:03:01
  fantastic. And he's got a, a mass appeal. So yeah, no brainer, I guess. Yeah. Well, this is
• 1:03:06
  sort of a earliest career we use to singing covers and so forth, which is, which is why the film
• 1:03:11
  is less expensive. I guess we don't have all this music. But, uh, but, uh, but the, the power of the,
• 1:03:16
  of the story is so good that, um, um, it has been totally jazz. So that, that's anyway, that,
• 1:03:20
  that's one of my, uh, one of my things I'm always working on. So there's always something that's
• 1:03:24
  going on. And I'm never just kicking back and, you know, well, now they do. I just watch streaming
• 1:03:29
  shows of night after about 7 p.m. That's, it's just TV time, you know, fantastic. So it's
• 1:03:35
  interesting that both those projects, I guess, musical theme, you have a valedine, Billy Joel,
• 1:03:38
  too. It's overgar, right? Because again, you know, um, like I said, I'm not going to repeat myself.
• 1:03:45
  I will. I was always wanting to do the thriller. The, you know, the suspects kind of mood, you
• 1:03:50
  know, the heist, you know, that stuff really gets me going. But it's like so weird that now,
• 1:03:54
  I think it's a sign of age because I was even telling the writer of, uh, of the Billy Joel
• 1:03:59
  movie, which called Billy and me. It's like, you know, just 10 years ago, I wouldn't have been
• 1:04:02
  able to understand this film because I, you know, I was all about, you know, the twists and the
• 1:04:07
  action and the plot, you know, and not about relationships and, and, and what people would do in
• 1:04:12
  these, in these, in these family situations. And there's lots of sub stories in this movie about
• 1:04:17
  Billy and his mother and he's, and he's has this, um, this pain for his dad leading him as a kid.
• 1:04:22
  And, um, you know, and he's ignoring his mother when he really should be
• 1:04:25
  paying attention to her, but it's all about his dad, you know, this ghost, you know, uh, he's all
• 1:04:29
  these other stories. His manager has a wife and their, their situation. And I'm really jazzed by it
• 1:04:34
  and never would have been into this kind of movie ever. You know, um, so yeah, it's, it's the
• 1:04:39
  sign of you crossed this line of wisdom in your life. And this stuff now just becomes second nature
• 1:04:45
  to me and what someone would do and how I rewrite that scene with a writer. Um, it's, it's, it's,
• 1:04:49
  it's, it's, it comes so quickly to me. Um, and it wouldn't have just 10 years ago.
• 1:04:54
  Mm-hmm. Fantastic. Well, fingers crossed, you know, via, I mean, that, that this project comes
• 1:04:58
  together. I mean, because it sounds fantastic. Yeah. It is. I swear.
• 1:05:04
  You sold me on it. You've sold me on it. I'm, and for me, you know, when I, it takes, I,
• 1:05:10
  I didn't know much about Billy Joel, frankly, you know, here it goes. It's the same situation.
• 1:05:13
  I get into these movies and I get so passionate, but I don't really know, and initially, who these
• 1:05:18
  people are, you know, I know Billy Joel, but it wasn't really, you know, but then the story so
• 1:05:21
  fucking great. And I saw, you know, a long hair cigarette smoke and film grain and handheld camera.
• 1:05:27
  That's to terms me as a filmmaker. I can see this whole movie, you know, um, I want it to be gritty
• 1:05:32
  like you're watching a Scorsese movie, you know, that's, that's the feel I want to have for it.
• 1:05:37
  Um, yeah, so we'll see. Other than that, you know, um, see what happens, you know, I'll go on a cruise.
• 1:05:43
  I don't know.
• 1:05:45
  Brilliant. Well, hey, I mean, I feel like you didn't, you've earned one after this. I mean,
• 1:05:48
  we're after Michael. I mean, it's likely back to some, uh, some of your early work, if I may,
• 1:05:52
  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,
• 1:05:56
  but I guess the, the work that sort of jacked me into sort of John Ommandland was, was X2.
• 1:06:01
  And you'll work on the X-Men films, which is just fantastic. And having, of course, you know,
• 1:06:06
  X2 was your first sort of foray into superhero cinema and that genre and having just,
• 1:06:10
  having done usual suspects a few years before to then find yourself doing get this huge blockbuster.
• 1:06:15
  I mean, what was it like coming on to that series as composer and editor, you know, like,
• 1:06:19
  both of those? What was it like?
• 1:06:20
  Well, I'll tell you, um, the funny, I couldn't do X-Men 1 because I was off shooting my,
• 1:06:25
  my masterpiece, uh, Urban Legend 2, you know, so I was, I was, I couldn't do it. Um,
• 1:06:31
  and they were even going to try to rearrange their post schedules so I could come on,
• 1:06:35
  but it didn't work out. So, um, and I don't know if you know how legendary the debacle was behind
• 1:06:42
  the scenes in X-Men 1. I was expected to be a horrible film knowing what I knew about the,
• 1:06:46
  and I turned out, I thought it turned out fine when I saw it in the theater. Um, but behind the scenes,
• 1:06:51
  it was, uh, because I wasn't there and Brian's used to how I work. He's worse, he's used to going
• 1:06:55
  away and I present him with stuff and, and he's used to me telling him, here's what the score needs to be,
• 1:07:00
  you know, and he lets me go do it and then he responds and, and so he, I was sort of the guide
• 1:07:05
  in, you know, in that relationship, but with him, and we had a similar taste factor and so, you
• 1:07:10
  know, and I would present him something, he would be critical of something, but we'd work it out.
• 1:07:13
  But basically, he'd depend on me for the, the impetus of the ideas. On X-Men 1,
• 1:07:19
  people didn't work that way. Michael Cayman says, well, what do you want me to do? You know,
• 1:07:23
  and, uh, and Brian says, well, you know, like a 70's kind of score, but that's not what he meant.
• 1:07:28
  What, what, Brian and I, we, we, we, we, Worship Phil's of the 70's, it was a very,
• 1:07:32
  very, like, pure time of filmmaking. And so, our stuff reflects that, but it's not that,
• 1:07:39
  and I said, when he told Cayman that, he went off and did the 70's kind of score and so,
• 1:07:43
  they became this big, constantly nightmarish, rewriting thing on the scoring stage and, and, um,
• 1:07:48
  they still talk about it to this day, you know, the, the, the meltdowns that happened and so forth.
• 1:07:53
  And I guess in the editing room, they had five editors on board and I guess they hated each other
• 1:07:57
  and they all hated Brian. It was like this whole crazy thing. The reason I'm telling you all this,
• 1:08:02
  because you asked the question, how the feel of walking into X-Men 2? Well, so we're, we're in Vancouver
• 1:08:09
  and I walk in the room and Tom Rothen, who's the head of the studio, is there and, um,
• 1:08:14
  I think this thing was like a dinner with some actors and stuff and, um, and, uh, Brian had used to me,
• 1:08:19
  and he goes, you're John Alman, because, because Brian through X-Men 1 would say, well,
• 1:08:24
  John would do this, well, John would do this, well, John would do this, well, John would do this,
• 1:08:26
  well, John would do this and, and his editor told him, you mentioned John Alman's name one more time,
• 1:08:30
  I'm going to throw, I mean, I'm going to throw this bottle into your head, you know, and we could
• 1:08:33
  actually throw a bottle through the, through the window when Brian wouldn't just shut up about me.
• 1:08:39
  Nothing, I'm like the God's gift, but it, because Brian's whole orientation was our relationship
• 1:08:44
  and he wanted everything to work the way we work. Um, and I'll never forget, I walked into the
• 1:08:50
  final dub of X-Men 1, just to say hi, you know, and the, the editor was up at the console with,
• 1:08:57
  with the, with the, with the mixer, and Lauren Shirley Donner was, uh, one of the producers,
• 1:09:00
  she was, oh, it's John Alman, and that guy's head whipped around and laser beams could have come
• 1:09:05
  out of his eyes and blasted my head off, you know, and I'm like, I would just, you know, I didn't do
• 1:09:09
  anything, I'm just visiting, you know, and so when I entered that, that meeting that, to kick off
• 1:09:15
  dinner for X-Men 2, my shit could never smell bad, you know, it's like, um, that they were just like,
• 1:09:22
  he's here, do it, you know, and so I really had a lot of goodwill coming in the film and it's
• 1:09:29
  great because it freed me, it freed me to do my thing without feeling to someone with breathing
• 1:09:33
  over my shoulder all the time like studio. They just trusted what I did, um, and, um, uh, and we had
• 1:09:41
  literally very, very little interference. Um, there's a really funny story I have with X-Men 2,
• 1:09:46
  um, I've told this a lot of people, but, um, and everyone knows this was involved in the movie,
• 1:09:51
  this critical moment. So, Tom Rothner is a great guy. He was the head of the studio, you know,
• 1:09:56
  we have this friends and family screening because we didn't like test screenings for films like that,
• 1:09:59
  we just had, we had friends and family, which people you know come in and, you know, end the crew
• 1:10:04
  and everything, they watch the film, we watch the back and Tom Rothner stood up and he was like,
• 1:10:12
  guys, you know, it's great, but it's, no one's got to understand, it's just way too confusing
• 1:10:17
  because you know, he had those ultimate realities in cerebral. You have the little girl who's
• 1:10:20
  really an illusion and you have the, you know, and he's like, we got to, we got to simplify this
• 1:10:24
  little blah, I mean, and then his, his, um, his 10-year-old daughter was there with him and he looked
• 1:10:29
  to her and he goes, I forgot her name, he goes, he goes, you know, Sandra, whatever. Do you know what
• 1:10:34
  happened with this film? Oh, yes, daddy. And she stood up and she gave this whole summary of
• 1:10:38
  everything happening with film, how the different realities and so forth. So, in that moment,
• 1:10:43
  we sat there with this collective sigh of relief with your hold in our breath and she saved that
• 1:10:47
  movie. His daughter saved that film because because of her being able to just tell him everything
• 1:10:54
  was happening in the film, we didn't touch it. You know, that's how crazy, that's how crazy
• 1:10:59
  film making is. His 10-year-old daughter saved X-Men too. That's, yeah. Your ideal audience screening,
• 1:11:07
  the screening audience member, I guess, yeah, like test screening. Yeah, yeah. So,
• 1:11:11
  what do you just, you just get set? And I also, I learned the term gilded, gilded lily on that,
• 1:11:18
  on that movie. I never heard that term before. And like I said, Tom didn't have much, we do,
• 1:11:24
  really, we're not, um, the studio was really good to us, no film. We just did what we wanted.
• 1:11:29
  There was very little perspective, but we were on the dub stage and, um, my big musical sequence
• 1:11:34
  for Gene Gray, pushing back the wall of water and all that stuff. And Tom looked at me, he goes,
• 1:11:40
  don't you think you're gilding the lily a bit there? I'm like, whoa.
• 1:11:45
  And I could do like, how dare it, you know, and, um, unfortunately, I was defended by, you know,
• 1:11:50
  Brian, and I think Chris McCory was there, he says, no, it's great, you know, it's like,
• 1:11:54
  you know, but I, but I'll, because that moment was so like, you know, it's seared into my head,
• 1:11:59
  you know, and so now I use that term all the time, you know, oh, I think we're gilded the lily there,
• 1:12:03
  you know, well, it's a fantastic sequence in a fantastic film. It's one of my very films
• 1:12:08
  you've worked on it. And I think it still holds up. And, I mean, like, and that theme of yours,
• 1:12:13
  there is so different from, obviously, for what Kamen did in the first time, that central ex with
• 1:12:16
  one of, you know, did a little bit of that. There's some similarity. I want to sort of be in the same,
• 1:12:24
  ballpark he was, but with that, but, but, but I felt that there was no, there was no second part of it,
• 1:12:30
  you know, that there's no conclusion to what he was doing. And so I want to sort of do a full
• 1:12:35
  fledged thing. And, and yeah, when that, when that equipment was in my editor room, that's the
• 1:12:41
  one thing I did do is I sat there when I, and I just fleshed out those themes for that sort of,
• 1:12:45
  agonizing the long, what do you call overture to the film, which has to be edited down, but,
• 1:12:53
  but, but I just wanted to put every single motif or theme in there that I was thinking of.
• 1:12:58
  Yeah, that whole suite, which is beautiful. I mean, what I did want to ask like, because that theme,
• 1:13:02
  those excellent themes, I mean, because there was a different composer on X-Men than I last
• 1:13:04
  stand, but then when you came back with days of future past, you reintroduced that theme,
• 1:13:08
  and then on Apocalypse. And it's kind of for me, I mean, at least for me, it's become the theme
• 1:13:12
  for the X-Men, automatically. And like, well, what was the germination for that theme,
• 1:13:16
  particularly, you know, that, that sort of iconic, what has become sort of this iconic X-Men theme
• 1:13:20
  for you? What, what was the germ? I don't know in desperation. You sit there and your fingers
• 1:13:25
  are come up with shit and you're like, oh, that sounds amazing. You know, I don't know. I just
• 1:13:28
  don't know. I mean, when you mention Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, like I didn't know it, do that movie,
• 1:13:32
  because that's not a period piece that film. And then I was started, I had an electric piano
• 1:13:37
  patch up on my keyboard, you know, and I just sort of was going, boom, boom, boom, and I go, oh,
• 1:13:43
  what if this film is, what if this is like a retro score? What if it feels like it's in the 60,
• 1:13:47
  but really not? And then that just, just doing that on my, on my, just kind of that riff on my
• 1:13:52
  keyboard, just really throwing my fingers on, lead to another thing, you know, then, then,
• 1:13:56
  then I had like a, some bongo thing, and then just sort of forming itself, and I thought,
• 1:14:00
  then you get excited, then you start building off of it, you know, and that's how that happens,
• 1:14:04
  you know, necessarily always have a theme that pops at your head. Sometimes you do. Here's a score
• 1:14:09
  that I think is one of the best scores that certainly no one has heard. Good by lover. Roll and
• 1:14:15
  Jaffee who directed the mission, the mission and killing fields, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he directed
• 1:14:21
  this comedy that no one understood. I got it. It was, it's really, I thought it was a really
• 1:14:25
  funny movie, but I replaced John Barry on that, on that score. And I remember I was in the theater,
• 1:14:34
  and it was watching it, and immediately the theme just went into my head. And I used before the
• 1:14:40
  time of iPhones, and recording something, so I just kept singing that theme over and over
• 1:14:43
  on my head, and I watched the films I wouldn't forget, and I went to my car, you know, and then
• 1:14:47
  called, called my the answer machine, and then saying it in, because sometimes that happens,
• 1:14:52
  sometimes that doesn't. It happened with mom, one of my favorite themes, which is the silver
• 1:14:57
  surfer theme, rise the silver surfer, and I was in a plane, and that just came into my head.
• 1:15:03
  So sometimes it happens, and sometimes a lot of times you just kind of, you know, through discovery,
• 1:15:08
  you know. Yeah, I remember the nice guys, there wasn't nice guys,
• 1:15:12
  theme, wasn't that just whistled into your phone, your iPhone, as well. Yeah, that was
• 1:15:15
  into a takeer porter, typical. Because Joel had said, look, I want you to do like that
• 1:15:23
  kitschy, you know, retro thing you did for Kiske's Bang Bang, and I'm, you know, and I want you to do
• 1:15:29
  something like, he mentioned some movie. I forgot what it was. I didn't do it exactly that,
• 1:15:35
  but it inspired me. So then every morning, I'd wake up, and I would be singing things that
• 1:15:39
  came to me, or before bed, and then listen to the next day, you're like, oh, that sucks. What was
• 1:15:43
  I thinking? But then you, that I kept kind of all these, all these ideas, I was, I was
• 1:15:48
  humming into my, my phone, and then bass lights organized them in my studio. And, you know,
• 1:15:56
  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
• 1:16:02
  didn't animate to do a title sequence to that, to that theme, unfortunately, you know, really,
• 1:16:07
  you kind of get wind of the theme as the film was along, but you don't really know establishment
• 1:16:12
  of it in the film, you know. For sure, for sure. So that's all the organic process of
• 1:16:17
  something of a theme just emerging. That was the same thing with X-Men, I'm guessing. It was just
• 1:16:20
  that it just came out organically as you were working. Yeah, yeah, it did. And really, but the
• 1:16:25
  pastiche of Cayman's thing influenced me, because it was, it's a very similar kind of, you know,
• 1:16:33
  tonality, but mine, I think, was just more driving and more accessible. You could, you could,
• 1:16:41
  you could recognize a thematic thing right away, you know, which I wanted, you know. Because,
• 1:16:45
  even that film, even though it's an older film, there's not a lot of time to play your theme,
• 1:16:50
  you know, and I remember, you know, after I wrote that whole theme, like, where can I stick it?
• 1:16:54
  There's nowhere to put it, you know, it's like, you know, stormed as a thing in this church,
• 1:16:58
  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
• 1:17:03
  pride. So, yeah, it's really a shame that you try to find places for it to work, but.
• 1:17:09
  But, well, but, but you did, because I mean, the theme stuck. And for me, it's like, I say, it's
• 1:17:12
  one of my favorite themes of yours. And, and also, I must say, like, you've, you've kind of,
• 1:17:17
  and I mean, this in the best possible, completely way, like, you've ruined the 20th Century Fox
• 1:17:21
  Fanfare for me now, because every time I see that Fox Fanfare, and that ever since you do that
• 1:17:25
  little sting of the, the, the, the end, even if it's not an extra movie, I can watch like a Fox
• 1:17:31
  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.
• 1:17:34
  Well, funny enough, I did that on X-Men 2. And then the memo, the memos went around, and everyone
• 1:17:41
  freaked out and we hadn't took it out. So it would have been on there since then. So then on
• 1:17:46
  X-Men Things Switch passed, I revisited the idea when there was more good will towards that theme
• 1:17:51
  and stuff. And I'm like, I just, let me do this, you know, and the memos went around again. They
• 1:17:56
  go, okay, because I brought up different examples of how people have fucked with the type, with
• 1:18:01
  20th Century Fox logo before, because like, that was their case. Well, you can't, you know, you can't
• 1:18:05
  screw it. Like, oh, well, it has been, look at Alien. I think there was an Alien movie that did
• 1:18:09
  something with or something. So they go, all right. So then we did it. Yeah. So that was well,
• 1:18:14
  that fun. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and I think the Simpsons movie as well did it as well. And then
• 1:18:18
  like, so there are, there are, it's so instances where they're like, okay, fine, you can do it.
• 1:18:23
  No, we're not. Yeah. Why not? But ever since then, like every 20th Century Fox movie, every time
• 1:18:28
  I see that theme, I just get that little motif at the end, in my head. It's in there. It's in there.
• 1:18:32
  That's the way it should be, right? You know, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and zeroing in on your,
• 1:18:37
  on sort of going from composer to editing then, I mean, because like we were saying about the
• 1:18:41
  lineups in usual suspects, you've cut so many great films and you've worked, cut so many great
• 1:18:45
  scenes. I mean, one of my favorite scenes from X2 is the opening, the night crawlers attack on
• 1:18:49
  the White House, which for me kind of raised, when I'm watching that back, like for me, you think
• 1:18:53
  of the time of the genre exploding at that time, like it kind of, for me, it raises the bar for
• 1:18:58
  light superhero action in cinema, you know, which only, you know, for, of that time, it raised the bar.
• 1:19:04
  And like, what, do you remember the cutting of that scene? Yeah. Well, it's funny. You say,
• 1:19:08
  raised the bar because, well, yeah, I remember the cutting of it, you know, it was basically working
• 1:19:12
  with the second director of the whole time and, you know, and kids, all bunch of beats that were,
• 1:19:18
  that were pre-visged, you know, storyboarded out and so forth. And the second director did all that
• 1:19:23
  stuff with exception, when we finally get into the oval office with the little moment of night
• 1:19:28
  crawler, I think Brian's painting for that. But, you know, these are things that second
• 1:19:30
  director designs and does. Brian Smurz, an amazing guy. But when you say elevated, it was,
• 1:19:37
  it was, I kept tempering it with different film action cues and another cue, another cue,
• 1:19:43
  try to do the tasteful, but cool action cues. And it just every time it felt like
• 1:19:47
  your typical action scene, you know, it just felt like, okay, I've seen this before. You know,
• 1:19:52
  why, how can I make this more special? Then I just thought, well, in the pre-vis, actually,
• 1:19:57
  we had used some, we had used some classical music. And so I said, what if I just did like a
• 1:20:03
  militaristic version of Mozart's Requiem, you know, and Anneville's and Snares, and that just,
• 1:20:09
  it's, it's just completely transformed. That's, that's an example of how music can literally
• 1:20:15
  transform a sequence and it's something, like you said, that's, that's now beyond what you're
• 1:20:20
  watching. It had this classic feel to it now, not because of classical music, but I'm going to
• 1:20:26
  clap and film classic feel, you know, and so that's the example of really transformation of
• 1:20:31
  based upon a musical idea. Yeah. Same with the individual suspects. You know, I had, I had, I had
• 1:20:38
  attempted the movie with getaway music when verbal is, was running away. And it was just a failure.
• 1:20:44
  I mean, you felt nothing and it's like, why is it not working? You know, and, and we were really
• 1:20:50
  depressed about it because, okay, this is the end of the movie. This is supposed to be the big
• 1:20:54
  twist and it just feels flat. And then I realized, no, need to feel good. He's leaving. He's,
• 1:21:00
  he's, you fork and some weird way. And so that's why I put in, I attempt it with this sympathy,
• 1:21:05
  carnival, the animals by St. Solomon, you know, and, um, and I didn't tell Brian that I was going
• 1:21:11
  to do it. And, um, then I also did the whole audio montage of all the things that have been said
• 1:21:15
  of the film. The real montage and that scene isn't visual. It's, it's audio. It's what I took all
• 1:21:21
  the different takes of what Virgil had said to Cuyon and it's been then creating this audio motif
• 1:21:26
  of Cuyon saying convinced me, convinced me, convinced me. You know, and that was, that's the montage
• 1:21:32
  you're feeling, not the visuals. Uh, so I put that with the carnival of the, uh, the animals music
• 1:21:37
  and Brian saw that and, and we screened in a little, in the theater and use its front row. He left
• 1:21:43
  that of a seat and turned around and he goes, whatever that is, rip that off, you know, and he goes,
• 1:21:46
  oh my god, it works. You know, it's amazing. That transformed the whole sequence that was the
• 1:21:50
  audio montage, cluster music, um, makes that sequence work. Gotcha. Yeah. And when, and when,
• 1:21:55
  and when that happens, when you have like a piece of music in there, which, and you know that there's
• 1:21:58
  a shift in like, okay, how the scene comes, it comes together on the screen. I mean, uh, when it comes
• 1:22:03
  to you as an editor, then on something like the nightcrawler attack on the White House like,
• 1:22:06
  does that, does the editing just become so much, why happens to the editing then? Does it just
• 1:22:10
  become so much smoother? Um, well, I mean, the editing was already done. I, I did this after the
• 1:22:17
  edit. Ah, right. You know, I might have made, I might have made some adjustments based upon the,
• 1:22:22
  the Mozart cue I put in there. I can't remember. Um, but uh, no, I mean, I, I, I, everyone thinks that
• 1:22:28
  what I'm, what I'm editing and scoring a film, I'm kind of doing both the same time. I, I, I
• 1:22:32
  have one hat on and then I put the other hat on basically. Um, and when the other hat comes on,
• 1:22:38
  you know, and I bring the, uh, the movie to my studio at the house, I'm starting to score it.
• 1:22:43
  Sometimes I, I have these epiphany, so now I'm seeing the movie in a, in a, in a different light
• 1:22:47
  all of a sudden for some reason. You know, um, that happens all the way to the dub stage. You can,
• 1:22:52
  I mean, even with Michael Jackson movie, it's like, no matter how many times you watch the
• 1:22:57
  editor room, no matter how many times you watch it in a screening room, then you get to the dub.
• 1:23:02
  And for some reason, you just, these things don't on you that you've never seen it in this light
• 1:23:06
  before. And I would go back to the editor room and start making, uh, editorial changes on the,
• 1:23:11
  well, we're on the dub stage, which normally on a film would be no big deal. Now on Michael,
• 1:23:16
  it's a big deal because every fricking shot is a visual effect shot. So every time I made a
• 1:23:21
  slighted it to change, it was $9,000 for the nose. Um, Joe's eyes, we had redone because he was
• 1:23:28
  wearing his contacts that looked strange. Every shot of him is a visual effect shot. And then,
• 1:23:33
  and then Miles Teller's hair was redone in some scenes digitally. And so it was almost nothing
• 1:23:38
  I could do. It wouldn't incur some cost, you know? So, um, but yeah, even on that film,
• 1:23:43
  at the last minute, I was like, oh, I got to change this, you know? And people looking at me like,
• 1:23:47
  oh, you know, and then Graham, of course, is king of that. Graham King is like last minute,
• 1:23:52
  like a pivoting. You know, what if we did this? I'm like, um, we're pretty mastering tomorrow.
• 1:23:57
  Well, let's just do it, you know, I can show you.
• 1:24:01
  All right. Last thing about editing, right? You know, like one of the key people, you know,
• 1:24:04
  after the film, after the fact, after the films we've made, the editor decisions can, you know,
• 1:24:08
  like millions or like thousands of dollars, you know, and like, you have so much power,
• 1:24:12
  you know, the editor has so much power. The film doesn't, yeah, or he or she. Yeah.
• 1:24:17
  The normer, like I said, those last thing to change is would not have cost as much as that did
• 1:24:21
  because they're not always visual effect shots like these were, you know? You know, crazy.
• 1:24:25
  It's a professional thing, but it came into the film as I came in late, you know, and the film
• 1:24:30
  got together and they already went down the road of doing his nose shots. So they start redoing
• 1:24:35
  everything, you know, and you want to roll out a shot and stuff like that, you can't because
• 1:24:38
  it only has seven frames of handles with now it's a visual effect shot. And so it was really,
• 1:24:43
  frustrating because then I had to find the original shot, go back in and redo the scene, you know,
• 1:24:47
  and then they have to redo the nose shots and it was quite a, quite a crazy situation, you know,
• 1:24:52
  normally you don't have to deal with that, you know, just especially for a biopic, why should
• 1:24:56
  every shot be a visual effects? For sure. For sure. And I mean, speaking of visual effects and
• 1:25:01
  sort of scale movies, like after X2, you did Superman Returns, you know, again, composer editor.
• 1:25:07
  And that's a film that I have to ask you about because I mean, again, like there are so many
• 1:25:11
  fantastic pieces and scenes in that film. I mean, talk about, you know, we talk about the night
• 1:25:15
  quarter attack in X2. I mean, I guess a scene that gets zeroed in on a lot by fans is the
• 1:25:20
  shuttle sequence, you know, Superman saves the plane from the shuttle. I mean, do you remember the
• 1:25:25
  editing and the composing of that scene? Because that's the edit and the music is so key for that scene
• 1:25:30
  in particular. Yeah. But again, I didn't deal with the musical after that was cut, you know,
• 1:25:35
  attempt it with a bunch of stuff. But a lesson that comes across from that scene, the coming
• 1:25:42
  way from that scene is that it was pre-visged, of course, which is forced to animate storyboards.
• 1:25:47
  And when you animate the storyboards, you look at the scene, it's all very exciting, you know,
• 1:25:51
  it's like, oh, we're just going to, we're just going to basically use these are inspiration,
• 1:25:53
  we're going to just shoot that. So that's what was done. It was shot. But you forget when you
• 1:25:58
  watch something like that is the human factor is missing. So we'll cut that whole thing together
• 1:26:03
  and it's like, I don't feel any peril inside. I mean, the cut of these were almost none inside
• 1:26:08
  the plane and what's what what the impact is when a plane does something like that, you know,
• 1:26:12
  people go like that, you know, and so we went back and shot a bunch of stuff inside the plane
• 1:26:17
  because it just wasn't working. You know, we, again, we've got to be in that horse where you
• 1:26:22
  forget about the human factor is what really people find exciting. It's not the, it's not the
• 1:26:26
  plane shit. It's the, the people inside of what's doing to them. So that really transformed the
• 1:26:32
  sequence and then, and then laid down the road at the agony of trying to outdo my temp score,
• 1:26:37
  which is always the worst because I create the most amazing temp score from all these different,
• 1:26:41
  the best parts of the best scores you could work for this moment, you know, that's like, you know,
• 1:26:45
  and that was a really hard cue for the orchestra to get through. And so it's so frenetic and fast
• 1:26:50
  moving and changing times of teachers all over the place and and hits and so we reported that
• 1:26:54
  cue in sections because I think it's a really long cue. Yeah, it's an epic one. And the scene,
• 1:27:00
  I'm so glad you mentioned the sort of the human factor in that scene because it's something that I
• 1:27:04
  wanted to bring up because if you didn't see from the people inside the plane's perspective of what's
• 1:27:08
  going on with Superman trying to say the plane, you wouldn't feel it in the same way. I mean,
• 1:27:11
  my two favorite shots, I think in the in the sequence are the shot. I think it's a POV shot. You see
• 1:27:18
  like a random woman inside the plane, she looks out and she sees Superman on the wing of the plane
• 1:27:21
  and then you cut you cut to the exterior and you see and you see her expression as she sees
• 1:27:25
  what's happening. And then my favorite shot of the sequence is is like a two second shot and it's
• 1:27:30
  almost you can almost blink and you miss it, but it's a shot of a think of the woman who is the sort
• 1:27:34
  of the the lecturer of the of you know, to the journalist, the director of something. And there's
• 1:27:38
  a two second shot of her praying as this plane's going down. And like I don't know if you remember
• 1:27:42
  what you can tell me about the cutting in a bat shot, but that's the shot where every time I see
• 1:27:46
  that movie and I see it like my my investment and my blood pressure like skyrocket. I'm not being
• 1:27:51
  as it sounds hyperbolic, but honestly like you know, it's such a brilliantly, those elements
• 1:27:55
  punctuated are so brilliantly put together. I mean what film was just downhill from there?
• 1:28:03
  I mean that that scene should have been the opening of the movie. The problem is we would have
• 1:28:08
  run out of story. We would we I mean when it was scripted that that should have been the first
• 1:28:12
  thing and then then fill with more story. I don't know, it just yeah, as you know, it also used
• 1:28:18
  to start out with like a six minute sequence of him traveling from Krypton and and all this
• 1:28:26
  stuff. It was beautiful and visually stunning, but it's so boring. You know, and so we we
• 1:28:31
  were sitting in the screen and Brian and I and and and Brian was like, do you have a known
• 1:28:37
  set of word for 45 minutes and this movie is true. I mean with the the journey from Krypton to him
• 1:28:43
  landing and Martha coming out. I mean it was like wow, you know, so so that's that I had this idea
• 1:28:49
  starting with with Lex Luthor, you know, the film and but you know, I think there was a there was
• 1:28:56
  a script there where we could have started with the jet, you know, I think so. I mean you always
• 1:29:02
  start with an action scene, you know, in these kind of movies, you know, and and then Luke,
• 1:29:07
  the Lex Luthor thing really wasn't an action scene. It was sort of a plot thing like, oh,
• 1:29:11
  here's the bad guy. We're introducing him. We're going to come back. There's a plot of foot.
• 1:29:14
  Okay, that's good because that wasn't there at all. And that was my 11th hour piphany.
• 1:29:20
  Literally maybe three weeks before our dub. I thought that idea to rearrange it so we can start
• 1:29:26
  some clock ticking with a bad guy. I mean it did change it. It helped a lot, but but in retrospect
• 1:29:31
  after that, like shit, we've just gone, anyway, retrospect, you know, but, you know,
• 1:29:38
  well, it sounds like quiet. It was there quite a lot of rearranging then of the movie The Pieces
• 1:29:42
  and like, okay, this comes to us. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then the 11th hour shooting all this stuff,
• 1:29:46
  going back to Australia, shooting all this stuff of him, you know, saving different people
• 1:29:52
  in Metropolis and so forth. And I didn't even know how they got those visual effects at
• 1:29:58
  the time because we really sat down and I came up with ideas with the previous artists and
• 1:30:03
  like flying on the seat of our pants, where we got to shoot like a week, you know, and
• 1:30:07
  probably heads up know what they're doing. And here's the things you have to do. He could say,
• 1:30:11
  this person by doing this and what if he does this with the manhole covers? Okay, you know,
• 1:30:14
  and they just basis somehow shit all that out and it looked pretty good, you know, I don't know
• 1:30:19
  how they did it so fast, you know, let's just say there was vodka bottles rolling around the halls,
• 1:30:23
  you know, and a lot of cigarettes being smoked. You're trapped. Yeah. Yeah. And but that
• 1:30:31
  shuttle scene, as I say, like, the human factor is so important. And I went and do you remember
• 1:30:35
  like when you were editing that scene and putting it together? And I guess the scoring process as
• 1:30:38
  well a bit. But like, we were you sort of pushing for those human shots in, like, we used all
• 1:30:44
  of having to fight. I said that this does not going to work unless we go shoot some stuff.
• 1:30:48
  So then I can't remember. I must have gotten together the previous guys and come together with
• 1:30:53
  a bunch of beats shoot. So they went off with Chaffa's. Yeah. Yeah, like the stuff of her praying and
• 1:30:58
  like the POV shots. Well, not like that. I'm lowest lane being flying across the cat and all the
• 1:31:03
  stuff. And that stuff wasn't shot, you know, there was like just a few beats here and there.
• 1:31:07
  And it's like you're like, it just, it's unsatisfying, you know,
• 1:31:10
  but it works. I mean, it all comes off. I mean, it's an incredible sequence. And the movie, you know,
• 1:31:14
  has fantastic stuff in it. And I mean, because as you say, you know, when you came onto X-Men,
• 1:31:18
  you weren't really a comic book guy. When you came onto the Human Rhapsody, you weren't really
• 1:31:21
  a queen guy. I mean, when you came onto Superman, were you a Superman guy? Was that not really the,
• 1:31:26
  you know, yes. I mean, to me, Superman 1978 is one of the best films ever made. It's a masterpiece.
• 1:31:32
  And I, I can't go on enough about that film. So I knew about Superman from that from that film.
• 1:31:40
  I didn't quite evenly watch the one in the fifties, you know. And I think that's one of the
• 1:31:45
  problems with Superman Returns is that we was so trying to be so reverential to the 78 version.
• 1:31:52
  It was crippled to go in a new direction. At the same time, I like that fact that it stayed true
• 1:32:00
  to, you know, the feeling that Superman should have. He should be a very positive,
• 1:32:05
  good force and so forth. And when those dark, those dark ones that came, came later, I was like,
• 1:32:12
  what is this garbage, you know, and so enough that ours was great. It's like ours was very flawed
• 1:32:17
  as well. It was a beautiful film. I think it was beautifully done. I just think the plot by
• 1:32:23
  Lex Luthor was derivative of, you know, before I think what's her face? The play to sidekick.
• 1:32:31
  Park Posey. She had nothing to do, you know. I remember she came out of the room when she goes,
• 1:32:37
  I'm like, I'm going to be okay. Is this going to be, I'm like, oh yeah, I hope you're here.
• 1:32:41
  But it's like, I knew she didn't have much to do for, you know, and she just sits around looking
• 1:32:44
  depressed with her little dog. And so there was something very off about the plot. But, but then again,
• 1:32:50
  I'm very proud of the work on the film. It's very, it's very beautifully done movie, you know.
• 1:32:53
  You know, I thought Kate Bosworth was fantastic, but she was miscast. I thought that lowest
• 1:33:01
  lay enough that everyone has to be Margot Kitter. She had to be more endearing and, you know, laugh,
• 1:33:06
  we need to laugh with her at least once, you know, or something. And she was so hard hitting reporter
• 1:33:11
  with a Pulitzer at like what 12, you know, it just didn't, I didn't buy it. And the funny thing is,
• 1:33:15
  we were so concerned about Brandon. How do we, Brandon, Brandon, pulling it off, Brandon pulling
• 1:33:21
  the whole time. It was really, it was really her character. It was the problem, I think.
• 1:33:26
  Now she's not just she was bad. She was excellent in the film. She's, she's a really good actress.
• 1:33:31
  Fantastic actress. I just, I felt she was miscast, you know, or she was miswritten or something.
• 1:33:37
  It wasn't her fault. And so, so all along, it really wasn't Brandon. That was the worry of,
• 1:33:42
  we shouldn't have been the worry of ours. It was that role, I think. I think they would have had
• 1:33:47
  a more fun relationship. Had should be a little more endearing in a way, you know, but still,
• 1:33:54
  you know, I, you know, I, I, I, I fusted my ass on that thing. And like I said, there are
• 1:33:59
  sequences I'm super proud of musically and rhetorially and everything. But as a whole, I think,
• 1:34:07
  I don't know, I think it was a story. And, you know, and frankly, let's put it, let's face it.
• 1:34:12
  We all love the Superman theme, which I made sure that was a very present motif through that film.
• 1:34:19
  But we didn't need that opening title sequence like that. It just, it just bogged it down. I mean,
• 1:34:25
  especially when we used to have title sequence going to Krypton, going with any crashes,
• 1:34:30
  Martha discovers him in an hour later, we finally get the plot going, you know, I really felt
• 1:34:37
  they should have been, you know, and I'm a treasualist. I love title sequences. I live for that.
• 1:34:42
  Sometimes it's the only one to see is the title sequence. But in this one, I felt like it should have
• 1:34:45
  been done, done, done, done, done, done, done. That's it. That's the whole title sequence.
• 1:34:50
  So it's in and into the movie. But there was a lot of pushback. I wouldn't want to see their name
• 1:34:55
  fly across, you know, and I'm like, okay, but it's just like, yeah, anyway, but I lost the
• 1:35:01
  one. Well, it sounds like there was quite a lot of, there was a lot of different ideas coming in
• 1:35:06
  by the sounds of it, a lot of different opinions, all of them always are. They always are. Yeah.
• 1:35:10
  I mean, we've Superman as well because it was, you know, it was, it was, it's hard to do, I remember
• 1:35:14
  when I watched the back, you know, recently, it's hard to do like a sort of ode to Donna and Reeve
• 1:35:19
  in the sort of 21st century. I mean, so much had happened, you know, it's a very difficult
• 1:35:24
  thing to do. And it was very, very admirable. As I said, like, there are some beautiful,
• 1:35:28
  they're like, you know, we all love the John Williams theme, as you know, as you say. And like,
• 1:35:31
  you know, and the theory in there was fantastic. I mean, even we actually had John Murphy on
• 1:35:34
  the podcast recently, composer who did James Gunn, Superman, and he was talking about integrating
• 1:35:39
  the Williams theme. It's kind of something that it's, it's ever-present, isn't it, when it comes to
• 1:35:43
  Superman, you know? Well, yeah, I mean, I guess it doesn't have to be, but again, that's such a
• 1:35:49
  seminal movie, the 78 version, that it's almost like sacrilegious to go away from it. You know,
• 1:35:55
  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
• 1:36:00
  like, that's it. You know, I mean, 95% of the score was a complete original, but it's like,
• 1:36:05
  it's that little nod, you know, that's, that's fun, you know? I mean, another great cue, I mean,
• 1:36:10
  this is not super related, but another great cue that I wanted to bring up with you is,
• 1:36:14
  which is actually another X-Men cue you did is, is Hope, you know, Xavier Seymour for days,
• 1:36:18
  Future Palace, which is a beautiful piece. Yeah, I mean, that's it. You never, didn't have a theme,
• 1:36:23
  and Xavier never had a theme in the movies, and it's like, it wasn't appropriate before,
• 1:36:28
  because there was, you know, it depends on the film, the time, the time given to the character,
• 1:36:32
  and what the movie's about. And it wouldn't make sense in X-Men 2 to try to shove in an Xavier theme,
• 1:36:38
  but just wouldn't, it wouldn't work. You have to choose your, your, your moments. And so,
• 1:36:42
  in this one, like, oh, this is all bad Xavier, and he has no theme. So, yeah, so that was,
• 1:36:46
  yeah, that's, that's, that's one of my favorites, yeah. It's kind of, it was a sad theme, but
• 1:36:56
  I always talk one time that all my music has a tinge of sad is to it, you're like, you're all right,
• 1:36:59
  well, I don't know what that means, but... Well, it's a, yeah, it's a beautiful piece. I remember
• 1:37:04
  hearing it when the movie came out, I mean, really, like, you know, it's a very, it's very quietly
• 1:37:08
  profound. I mean, do you remember, like, as with, like, the X-2 theme, and do you remember the
• 1:37:12
  germination for that one, like, you know, how that starts. Yeah, I was just a scene in his bedroom
• 1:37:17
  when he is all drugged out in the press or something, and, and, and I just sort of,
• 1:37:26
  just came up with that. I mean, just came out. I think I had like, electric keyboard sound,
• 1:37:35
  you know, and that's where it started, is that scene, which makes sense, you know. It's not,
• 1:37:42
  it's not, it's, it wasn't a moment where I before the film, before I started the movie, I came
• 1:37:48
  up with a theme for him. It was really, and that's when I was scoring that scene, I realized, oh,
• 1:37:54
  this is the perfect moment for a theme for him, and, and so then I kind of carried through
• 1:37:59
  to the other scenes, and then, and then had that, that, that big piece done just for the film, you know.
• 1:38:06
  Yeah. My, my kind of, like, Zimmeresque kind of version of it, you know,
• 1:38:12
  that the epic kind of, yeah, yeah. Well, it's like you were saying about X-Men, like, you were saying
• 1:38:18
  like X-2, you were saying, where do I work in the theme, like, you know, was storm in the church,
• 1:38:21
  but then I guess in days when you passed it was just immediate, like, oh, this theme can go
• 1:38:25
  here and can go here, and it can feed organically in. Yeah. But again, again, right, well,
• 1:38:31
  right now, it seems like I had a time to say my ass, because like, when I went into, you know,
• 1:38:35
  this long thing in the, in the, what do you call it, the conversion chamber, where, where
• 1:38:41
  strikers waiting for, for a Logan, you know, it's that, you know, it's just a minor thing,
• 1:38:55
  and, um, I wanted to, that scene, that theme, which floated me through that, that sequence,
• 1:39:01
  because I had pre-written it, and it just worked like a beautiful glow, that had, that turned into
• 1:39:06
  the theme to, um, that, that, what's the X-Men film of the young guys, the, the, the,
• 1:39:12
  the, oh, first class, first class. It turned into the theme of first, it turned into, no, it turned
• 1:39:16
  into Magneto's theme, or, or the theme, yeah, for first class, I'm like, what is, so then,
• 1:39:21
  everyone got used to that, and to me, it's like, well, that doesn't make sense, because it's
• 1:39:25
  the theme to Wolverine, you know, it's like, it's, it's, it's Wolverine's theme, and so, then I,
• 1:39:29
  so then when we did, um, then when we did, um, Day's Reacher Pass, I was like,
• 1:39:35
  fuck that, and I'm not going to use that theme for Magneto, um, because that's Wolverine's theme,
• 1:39:40
  and so I, I, I, I put it back, you know, I'm supposed to, they'll put the world back the way
• 1:39:45
  you're supposed to be, in my opinion, so. And again, this is the great thing about your career,
• 1:39:50
  like, you know, you talk about specific cues, and then talk about specific scenes, like Day's
• 1:39:53
  Future Pass, like, you know, again, fantastic array of just brilliantly put together scenes and
• 1:39:58
  sequences, I mean, I think the one that, the fan favorite is the quick silver pentagon scene,
• 1:40:03
  which, you know, is just such a set that way. That was just on time and a bottle, yeah, but,
• 1:40:07
  I mean, do you remember the cutting of that? Do you remember the process of cutting that one?
• 1:40:10
  Well, fuck yeah, I mean, they're super complicated, you know, hemorrhage, brain inducing, but,
• 1:40:15
  but, you know, again, no, but it was painstakingly, uh, uh, uh, previst out, you know, but even so,
• 1:40:20
  the previst has always worked according to plan, um, you know, and you, you change things
• 1:40:26
  editorially and, and, uh, but, you know, um, but, you know, that sequence wasn't as difficult as
• 1:40:33
  it may seem, only because it was so planned out, you know, whereas when you get like, you know,
• 1:40:38
  bazillion feet of footage for a film, the first scene and there's no plan, you know, and it's like,
• 1:40:42
  you got to figure out and design it. That was pretty well designed ahead of time, you know.
• 1:40:46
  Right, so there was a much, yeah, it was just basically putting the pieces together, uh, at the time,
• 1:40:51
  it's pretty much. That was at the case for the apocalypse sort of version of that, you know,
• 1:40:55
  just the whole house, the whole mansion. Same thing. And I told them, anyway,
• 1:40:59
  let's don't get me going. It's like, I read that script and I was like, dude, it's okay.
• 1:41:06
  This isn't going to be fun for people because the other was emerging from a, from a fun
• 1:41:13
  heist and we're already having fun. It's a prison break. Uh, this other one, um, people,
• 1:41:20
  a guy just probably died. There's people burning and it's like, and you make this fun sequence,
• 1:41:25
  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
• 1:41:30
  going to, it's going to feel weird to people, you know, and then right after the sequence is then
• 1:41:33
  you find out that, um, what's this phase? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it's like, uh, I knew going into it,
• 1:41:41
  it was going to feel forced in a way. And, um, it's a cool sequence, but it just, but to be,
• 1:41:46
  it feels forced in my opinion. Is that where your, because I know on Apocalypse, you were editor
• 1:41:51
  composer and a, so, and producer, right? Is that where your sort of producer hat is coming on?
• 1:41:55
  And you're like, guys, well, I mean, I was always sort of that, but I just getting credit this time,
• 1:41:58
  but, uh, you know, um, but yeah, well, here's what happened was, and I'll just be frank,
• 1:42:03
  it's like, on days of each of past, I did stuff that's normally not done. Okay, there's a lot
• 1:42:11
  of faith put in me and Brian told the, um, the, uh, the live producer, you're John wants something
• 1:42:17
  we're going to do it, because we'll save money that way. If we do it now, rather than go to LA,
• 1:42:21
  they come back after reshoots, which are way more expensive. And there was these scenes that I'd
• 1:42:26
  be in the middle of cutting like, you know what? The scene makes no sense. We have to go and choose
• 1:42:30
  something else. And I would describe the scene and then Simon, the writer would, would do his
• 1:42:34
  version of it and we go shoot it. And we did this on, it's like three scenes and they're big,
• 1:42:39
  expensive scenes. Um, and so we did that with LA, put the film together. We hardly hardly anything
• 1:42:47
  to do for reshoots except for doing this different rogue, rogue cut version, uh, which is the whole
• 1:42:54
  whole thing talk about, which is like so complicated. I barely remember what happened, but wait,
• 1:42:57
  I had to go shoot a bunch of stuff for that. Um, so then when apocalypse came, there was this
• 1:43:01
  complacency like, well, everything's just going to work out fine. It's like last time for getting
• 1:43:05
  how that happened. And so I was given the script and I had like pages and pages of notes because
• 1:43:11
  it's all, it's all my self interest, right? Because I see things in a blob of my face and it's,
• 1:43:17
  and I got to figure out how to solve them and I don't want to do that. You know, I, I, I, I,
• 1:43:20
  I'm true for my own sanity. I can't let the script be the way it is. And oh, John, be fine,
• 1:43:26
  be fine. It's going to be fine. Not a problem, you know? And so, um, and so then we go into
• 1:43:31
  production and we have a film with no third act. There's no third act. It was a beach sheet.
• 1:43:37
  It was a beach sheet. It was like, uh, so and so, uh, uh, attacks so and so and they die.
• 1:43:42
  This person somehow escapes and, and, um, you know, and this person dies and they,
• 1:43:47
  would they win? That's it. That was, it's a beach sheet. And, um, and so, uh, and I guess
• 1:43:54
  that's not heard of. It's crazy, but I guess Marvel films that way too. They have no real
• 1:43:58
  ending yet and they go just wing it. Oh, so, so, um, yeah. So the lot of the problems that I
• 1:44:04
  thought would have happened. They exploded in my face and then along with the third acting
• 1:44:09
  that, again, huddling with the, with the, with the, with the, with the, with the previous team
• 1:44:14
  and the second director and just coming up with shit the last second in that final confrontation
• 1:44:19
  battle, you know, and figuring out who dies, who goes where, you know, well, they go there,
• 1:44:23
  then the batskin, it's always always like, um, um, um, like a Rubik's cube or something.
• 1:44:28
  It's like, you can't have this person there because if they're there, that person would, I can't
• 1:44:33
  explain it, but it's like, um, uh, almost an impossibility to figure out where each character is
• 1:44:39
  going to be to make the logical sense of the whole situation, you know, um, so, yeah, but
• 1:44:44
  it ended up coming together and repurposing scenes and, uh, thank God for, for, uh, voice over,
• 1:44:51
  hearing people's thoughts and stuff. You could just fill in shit and, like, come up with
• 1:44:54
  different things of Xavier sitting there and, you know, uh, this mind battle thing and, uh,
• 1:45:00
  oh my God. So, you know, I mean, it's, I, I, I don't have really good memories sometimes that,
• 1:45:04
  it was also to blur, but I remember it was, it was a total, total, total nightmare, um, to
• 1:45:10
  get that thing to where it was, you know, wow, wow, as opposed to day to feature past, which,
• 1:45:14
  which was, was that a bit smoother? Because I could solve the problems as we were going along,
• 1:45:18
  but there was such complacency, well, they forgot that we, that's the way we did it. So,
• 1:45:22
  well, we'll just, we'll just, you know, it'll all work out, you know, so, you know, um, it was a
• 1:45:28
  problem, you know, the script was, I know, it's not a terrible movie, it's a good film, but, but,
• 1:45:32
  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
• 1:45:39
  injuries all these new characters in the beginning and it really weighed it down and you, but you have
• 1:45:43
  to introduce, introduce all those characters. So it's an obligation the film had, um, so how do you
• 1:45:48
  get through all that in the most fun way you can and get the story started? I think
• 1:45:52
  problem with it, you know, but I mean, do you remember when you had a build whose head looks too,
• 1:45:58
  too big? The apocalypse is head. Oh my god, it's like Frankenstein, you know.
• 1:46:07
  Well, Oscar Isaac has taught, because he's, he's a big expert fan, but I think he's taught
• 1:46:10
  it over the years about how when he came on board, he was very excited and then maybe the
• 1:46:13
  production was quite tough. It was like, you know, the apocalypse he was playing was not the
• 1:46:17
  apocalypse. He kind of imagined he would be doing. So he's talked about difficulties. Yeah. Oh,
• 1:46:20
  I think the cross-ness is surreal and, um, I'll leave it there. Stuff you can't make up,
• 1:46:25
  but I'm sure that's what he's talking about. Sure, sure, sure. I mean, with days for you past
• 1:46:31
  thing, because you mentioned there were scenes that were kind of, the you sort of visualized,
• 1:46:34
  when you were editing, like, we need to, we need this, we need this and you went in Simon would
• 1:46:38
  Kimberg would write them and then you would go off and shoot them. I mean, do you remember,
• 1:46:41
  while those, and these were like big scenes, you remember what those scenes were? Well, the original
• 1:46:44
  version of the movie was that like, the whole mission is like, we have to get, um, um,
• 1:46:51
  mystique, uh, from ever killing trash. That's it, right? That's it. Yeah. So
• 1:47:01
  all you got to do, which comes back to the mansion, there was a kitchen scene in the mansion,
• 1:47:04
  which he was back to his, hi, everybody. And I'm like, wait a minute, just lock the door,
• 1:47:08
  mission accomplished. You're done. Why is she going back to mansion? It makes no, it makes no
• 1:47:13
  sense. So I'm cutting the scene going, the movie's over. Just lock the door. So like, we can't
• 1:47:20
  ever have her come back to the mansion. I said, you got to should've seen where, where she's not
• 1:47:24
  coming back and exated communicate with her in a train station. And then Simon made it into an
• 1:47:28
  airport. And so, and so we wouldn't shot that whole thing. And there was a couple of other things
• 1:47:33
  like that. And so in that version of the film, I mean, no sense for her to ever come back. And so
• 1:47:37
  those are the things that we did to, to make the film work. And then, and then with the road cut,
• 1:47:42
  of course, she ends up coming back in a different way. She ends up coming back, but they don't know,
• 1:47:45
  but they don't know she's coming back, which is a whole different situation, which is a whole
• 1:47:48
  different thing. She can come back and destroy cerebral. That's all cool. But the love is no
• 1:47:52
  no she's there. Otherwise, film over. You know, so there was things like that that on this from
• 1:47:56
  a story point, not that, not that the scene's bad, although the kitchen scene was really bad. It was
• 1:48:01
  just on top of that. It was a horrible scene. So we, that was a, so double win, you know,
• 1:48:06
  getting rid of the scene. But, but, but again, it's this is the, this is what the editors should do.
• 1:48:10
  They should see things from a story point of view ago. This is never going to work ever, you know,
• 1:48:15
  so again, it's all self preservation. It's not that I care about the movie, but I care more about
• 1:48:20
  myself having to score fucking movie down the road. And I can't, I can't have a movie of problems
• 1:48:25
  because I won't be able to write the score. So I was always in my self interest to solve the
• 1:48:30
  problems navel. And that's why my, my editors kept, we're always within 10 minutes of the running
• 1:48:36
  time because I had to cleverly know this scene's never getting in the film. I'm cutting it now.
• 1:48:42
  And so Brian, I used to that. And so we would just, I would, my first cut, so I was very lean,
• 1:48:46
  and that was pretty much the movie. And so the only changes we would guess to make is actually
• 1:48:52
  saying, I think we could stand with this back or whatever. So those, we would do the opposite
• 1:48:55
  of what we normally would do. And I just had to do that. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to
• 1:49:00
  write the scores, you know. Yeah. And do those battles where things kind of blow up in your face,
• 1:49:04
  like on say apocalypse and the third act of the script. I mean, with those things that have,
• 1:49:09
  are those almost kind of systemic things that happen more and more like as down the line?
• 1:49:13
  I guess they do. You know, I mean, I, I guess I've heard since then that that's, you know,
• 1:49:18
  quite not unheard of, you know, I don't understand it. I'm up on a planner, you know, it's like,
• 1:49:24
  I got to know, you know, it's like when I write a queue for a movie, I orchestrate the whole
• 1:49:29
  thing. I got to, I wanted, I can't imagine going to the scoring stage and going, I wonder,
• 1:49:33
  I wonder what my orchestrators did, you know, it's like, I got to know what it's going to sound like.
• 1:49:36
  So it's the same with the, with the movie. I mean, any, I would think any editor wants to know
• 1:49:40
  where the, where the end of the movie is going, you know. So yeah, that was, that was crazy. You
• 1:49:46
  know, and inevitably those scenes are never going to be as good as they could have been because you're
• 1:49:50
  just flying by the seat of your pants and coming up with stuff as fast as you can, you know.
• 1:49:55
  But I will say, you know, I give credit what credits do, don't care. So Brian was relatively
• 1:50:04
  uninvolved in the re-shape into the third act of the film, all the action stuff. As was kind of
• 1:50:09
  the writer, they're kind of like, let's see what you guys come up with, pre-vis wise. So I bring
• 1:50:14
  the whole plan into Brian's trailer. Here's what's going to happen. You know, they're going to be
• 1:50:18
  over here. I'm the laser's going over here in the middle, you know. And, and he was kind of like,
• 1:50:22
  okay, again, and then he goes, wait a minute, wait a minute, you know, you know, and what if, you know,
• 1:50:29
  she just sort of like walks on air, you know, and I'm like, oh, that's fucking cool. You know,
• 1:50:37
  and so then that inspired you kind of we're working the scene, you know, just sort of like make that
• 1:50:43
  the big moment, you know, but so it's like, this is how the crazy shit goes on, you know.
• 1:50:49
  It just happens at the 11th hour, you're like, oh, like you're saying Joel Silver, like Joel will
• 1:50:52
  get an idea, like, oh, why don't we try this, you know, and then, but then as an editor, are you kind of
• 1:50:58
  like, is that when you just the sweat starts? Because you're like, God, you know, we've got to finish
• 1:51:01
  this on schedule and how are we going to do this? Yeah, well, normally the sweat is already there,
• 1:51:05
  but then if I got this thing, I got to do, which is right, the score. That was my constant worry
• 1:51:12
  and nightmares. How am I going to do that? You know, yeah, because not like to fill the stops,
• 1:51:18
  and then when it goes, okay, it was tough, the movie now, go draw, go write your score.
• 1:51:21
  As I write that score, all these problems are still going on. So I'm always going back
• 1:51:25
  to work back with my studio and trying to, you know, so that I said it's so ridiculously insane
• 1:51:33
  when I went through to do that. That's why I just had to stop after apocalypse, you know.
• 1:51:37
  Yeah. Yeah, because I remember when I was looking back at your work, like 2016, you did
• 1:51:41
  nice guys in the apocalypse and those were your last sort of feature film scores. Was that the
• 1:51:44
  point where you were like, right, editing? Well, you know, it's, it's, it's tough for me because
• 1:51:51
  I want to go be writing stuff. The same time, I don't want to be stuck in a room at 11, 12,
• 1:51:58
  13 hours a day anymore, because that was my life for 20, 30 years, and I just don't want to do
• 1:52:03
  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
• 1:52:09
  maybe putting my films together as a director, it's like, I, it's so it's kind of painful in a way
• 1:52:13
  because I want to be writing something, but I also want to, I also don't want to be.
• 1:52:17
  Nothing you shouldn't fall back on what you've done and not go forward. I am one of my, my
• 1:52:21
  hobby projects is going to be putting all my themes together and have the re-performed
• 1:52:25
  biorexter on Europe and then put out an album, you know, not bringing money, making purposes,
• 1:52:29
  just so I can have them out there because, you know, usual aesthetics was recorded illegally
• 1:52:37
  in that little room in San Diego. And so you can't hear it on the radio. You can't hear that score
• 1:52:41
  in Spotify because it was not legally done. So if I go record it somewhere, then it could get on
• 1:52:49
  local stations here, like the, our classical station or, or maybe a Spotify. And so again,
• 1:52:54
  it's just to get it out. There's people here and then there's a few scores are really on,
• 1:52:57
  in my career that were kind of done that way. So, they're money. So I want to, you know,
• 1:53:02
  just re-performed them so they're mine so I can get them out there, you know.
• 1:53:06
  Absolutely. Well, that sounds fantastic. I know I did that about usual suspects that, you know,
• 1:53:11
  it was kind of put together that way. So no, it sounds like a great culture.
• 1:53:14
  You're calling it a score.
• 1:53:19
  Brilliant. Well, as I guess is a sort of rapid question. Do you have any advice, I guess,
• 1:53:22
  for someone who wants to break into editing or composing or even do both at the same time,
• 1:53:27
  like, you know, uniquely, but I don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't do it.
• 1:53:32
  Well, I always get this trite advice, but it's something, but it's advice sometimes that people
• 1:53:37
  don't take, at least people I've known. It's like, basically say yes to everything at this point
• 1:53:43
  in your career. I mean, because you never know that shittiest little stucco project that you did,
• 1:53:50
  if you had not done it, it wouldn't have led unexpectedly to somewhere else. Or someone's
• 1:53:55
  aunt's uncle's niece was on that project and saw your work and told their uncle who knew someone
• 1:54:00
  else, you know, that's the way it goes. And then there's a fringe benefit that comes from it as well.
• 1:54:06
  If you get on these crappy little projects, everyone you do, you learn more. And you teach yourself,
• 1:54:12
  especially if it's a dog of a project, you teach yourself how to have a good attitude about,
• 1:54:16
  I'm going to make this better. I'm going to, whatever I do on this, I'm going to,
• 1:54:21
  I'm going to make this a lot better than it is now. At least that's what you think you're doing,
• 1:54:25
  at least, you know, I mean, I still do that on some terrible things I get on and then I saw
• 1:54:29
  see him a year later and like, oh, it's still sucked. But I had to convince myself I was going to
• 1:54:33
  make the thing better. And so it makes you a person that people want to work with and it makes you
• 1:54:38
  have that great attitude that you are going to try your best to elevate the film, you know.
• 1:54:43
  Yeah, so just do, do, do everything, you know, go to, I mean, again, it doesn't mean,
• 1:54:50
  if this point shouldn't matter what the project is, just do something, you know, because it will
• 1:54:55
  unexpectedly lead somewhere else, you know. So just to dive in and be your best self and just
• 1:55:01
  and work hard. Yeah, I mean, holding out for, oh, well, I mean, hold out for the good one that
• 1:55:07
  comes, you know, it's like, you might hold me holding out for quite a while, you know, or, or,
• 1:55:14
  yeah, you just got to get your feet wet and you're, you know, your hands dirty,
• 1:55:17
  don't have an attitude. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think get your hands dirty and don't have an attitude.
• 1:55:22
  Well, I think that's a fantastic note to end on, John. I mean, this is been an absolute pleasure,
• 1:55:28
  honestly. This is like, you know, as I say, you know, a big, great, thank you. Thanks, man.
• 1:55:32
  No, I mean, I've been a big family of yours for years. So it really was just such a pleasure to
• 1:55:36
  chat to you. Well, you have great taste, I'll be great to know. I'll take that. I'll take that.
• 1:55:41
  But no, no, thank you so much, John. This really was such a pleasure. Thank you. I appreciate it.
• 1:55:56
  Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for listening to my chat with John Ophman. Remember to like and
• 1:56:00
  subscribe to the podcast. See you in the next episode. As they tuned for more exciting
• 1:56:04
  interviews and guests coming soon on half the day.