Latest / Half the Picture / #33 - RACHEL PORTMAN

Transcript

#33 - RACHEL PORTMAN · Half the Picture

• 0:00
  You won, you know, the first Oscar won by a female composer for your work.
• 0:03
  You know, it was so out of the blue for me because I was living in England.
• 0:08
  I was like frozen rabbit in the headlights. I just wandered up into the stage and then wandered off.
• 0:13
  You have a camera person in front of you kneeling down on the floor,
• 0:17
  going backwards and you're walking in front of them and you're thinking like,
• 0:20
  God, it's going to take ages to get to the stage and all the clapping is going to stop by the time I get there.
• 0:33
  Hi Rachel, welcome to Half the Picture. How are you doing today?
• 0:36
  I'm doing great. Thank you. Happy to be here.
• 0:40
  Likewise, it's great to have you on the pod. I mean, I was just saying before we started rolling.
• 0:43
  I've been looking up to set us to a number of the guests we've had on,
• 0:45
  so I feel like a bit over a broken record, but I genuinely have been a fan of yours
• 0:49
  for so many years. You know, I first heard your music as a kid when I went to go see all of the
• 0:53
  twists at the cinema, which you did the score for. And that was like, kind of as I said,
• 0:57
  kind of entry into Rachel Portmanland and I've been a fan ever since.
• 1:00
  So it really is a pleasure to have you on the show.
• 1:03
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 1:05
  So yeah, I mean, like, because having gone back for your back catalogue and going back
• 1:08
  for your sort of your career in the run-up to this chair, I mean, it's fascinating to me because,
• 1:13
  you know, you've done so much and like, the breadth of your work is extraordinary.
• 1:17
  I mean, obviously working with directors like Douglas Pagraphon,
• 1:19
  things like Emma, you know, Planskin, all of the twists and people like Mike Lee,
• 1:24
  you know, doing films like Life is Sweet.
• 1:26
  I mean, like to give like a run-up, a brief run out of your career is kind of hard
• 1:30
  because you've done so much. You worked so many amazing people over the years.
• 1:34
  But yeah, I mean, I guess going back to the beginning, and this is a question I tend to ask a lot of
• 1:37
  other composers we've had on. But like, when you first, when was the moment that you kind of,
• 1:42
  I guess, that galvanized you to realize, oh, film music and music and
• 1:46
  general is something I want to do. Was there a piece of music or a composer or film that you,
• 1:50
  that when you're young, you heard it and you're like, that's this is for me. This is what I want to do.
• 1:55
  Yeah, well, I mean, for me, I was, I knew I was going to be doing music
• 2:02
  some shape or form in when I was a teenager. And then when I around the age of 16,
• 2:08
  17, I started writing a lot of music. And so then I decided I wasn't going to be a pianist,
• 2:14
  even though I played the piano in the violin. I was going to be a composer.
• 2:18
  So I was fixed on that. That seemed like a really great career for me. I mean, I wasn't,
• 2:27
  I wasn't going off to specialist music school or anything like that, but I was writing a lot of
• 2:32
  music. And then I studied music. I went and did a music degree. And while I was there,
• 2:38
  I was writing music and became very discouraged by my tutor who thought that the music that I was
• 2:45
  writing wasn't modern enough, wasn't intellectual and not, you know, not sort of pushing the boundaries
• 2:54
  of music that was difficult to listen to. I really wasn't interested in doing. And I was really
• 3:00
  discouraged. So I started writing lots and lots of music for theatre productions. I was at Oxford
• 3:07
  and there was loads of theatre, you know, they're all these sort of chorus productions and stuff.
• 3:11
  So I was writing maths to the music and then I, a bunch of students got together and made a
• 3:20
  film, a feature film, even though we're on with students. And I was kind of the natural person to
• 3:28
  ask to do the music for it because I was the person who was doing most of the theatre productions.
• 3:34
  And so I wrote the music for that and it was, and it was like, that was my light bulb moment.
• 3:41
  That was when I thought, oh God, this is much more fun than writing music for theatre. I don't
• 3:46
  want to, you know, because I'd noticed that, you know, the scene changes got swifter during the
• 3:52
  run. And so my music needed to be cut shorter and shorter with, you know, and all these theatre
• 3:56
  productions. And so, I mean, really, that was what did it for me. So it came from wanting to
• 4:02
  write music. And then, and I'm in hand, thought of film. But I guess it's, I naturally found my way
• 4:09
  into writing music that is, you know, for film and actually now for anything that has any kind
• 4:19
  of storytelling aspect to it. And so that's how it happened. And so I was 21. And then that
• 4:28
  became my mission to write music for the film. And I spent my 20s completely focused on that,
• 4:36
  whilst things were quite difficult sometimes. And there was no work. And then I, you know, I mean,
• 4:41
  in my 20s, I worked two or three times with Mike Lee, actually, he was great. He gave me,
• 4:46
  he gave me a break as a very young sort of a woman, which was really kind of him. I did a play for
• 4:54
  today with him. And then I did a film. And then I did, I thought a keen ex I thought with him.
• 5:01
  Which was great. And various other things. But, yeah. So, you know, he was good to me.
• 5:07
  And I'm alright with thinking, what you mentioned there about the student film that you did it. And
• 5:11
  that sort of, well, that was what got film music into your blood. Like, I'm alright with thinking,
• 5:15
  because you went to uni with Hugh Grant, right? And he was into film. I did. I knew him. He was in it.
• 5:20
  Yeah, he was in it. Yeah, a small part of it. And yeah, we, it's not, I mean, just like, I was
• 5:26
  direct contemporary. Yeah. Yeah. And so, like, you're first and always your first screenwork,
• 5:30
  as a composer is a Hugh Grant. Absolutely. But quite, you know, quite a few people in that film,
• 5:38
  you know, went on to do good things. So he wasn't anyone. So,
• 5:44
  yeah. And I, you mentioned Mike, I mean, because Mike's song we've had on this pod. And,
• 5:48
  I mean, I'm a huge fan of his. I just think he's brilliant. And I love the work you guys did
• 5:52
  together. I mean, yeah, the play for the day you did four days in July, which has got a fantastic
• 5:56
  score. And then life is sweet. And the score you did for that, that film, I mean, because it's
• 6:01
  so deceptively simple, that one. And it's a melody. There's such a beautiful melody at the heart
• 6:05
  of it. But you see it, all these different permutations of that melody echo throughout the whole
• 6:09
  film, like, you hear it on an accordion with the kind of the French Tim Spaule's French restaurant,
• 6:14
  you hear it on, like, I guess, kind of like more like clarinets and oboe's. You hear it in all
• 6:18
  these different permutations, but it's such a rock solid kind of melody. It's just beautiful. I
• 6:22
  mean, I just wanted to ask, like, what was it like working with Mike? And I guess on that film,
• 6:27
  specifically, like, what was it like? Well, you know, it's not the music for a film, like,
• 6:32
  in like that, like life is sweet, could be almost anything. I mean, it just, a lot of it is,
• 6:38
  you know, the characters in it sitting around and sitting around talking. And you're like, you know,
• 6:46
  it's not, it's not like writing the music for a costume drama or, you know, or, I don't know,
• 6:53
  a thriller or something like that. It's really, so it could be almost anything. And
• 6:58
  Mike might quite like unusual, well, he does like unusual instruments. And I knew that already.
• 7:06
  So, because I've done another thing with him and, and, and so that, I mean, that's like joy to
• 7:12
  me. So I, I put together a sort of group of unusual instruments to give it, you know, really,
• 7:19
  really, I was sort of kind of writing a score that would give it to have its own character,
• 7:24
  that actually is a really strong character, that, that, that somehow comments in its own way
• 7:32
  on the film, but without it, you know, I don't know. So it has its sort of, it's kind of a life,
• 7:37
  it has a life of its own. And Melody's also really important to Mike. And I think Mike quite
• 7:44
  likes quite simple music. I may be wrong, but I know he's a big fan of Gilbert and Sullivan.
• 7:50
  And one of the things was I, yeah, you wouldn't think it's so hard when you're writing the music for
• 7:56
  you, you have, I don't know, I can't remember how long I had, I've probably heard about eight
• 8:01
  weeks to write it or something, or maybe a bit less. And, and the main thing at the beginning is
• 8:06
  coming up with a theme. And I wrote so many themes for it. And as far as I remember, and he would come
• 8:14
  round and I, he'd sit down and I'd play him on the piano, a theme and he'd go, no. And then he
• 8:23
  hung out a few days later and I'd play something else to get, no. And eventually I was really worried.
• 8:28
  And I used to, I remember, I used to, I didn't live that far from Hanson Heath. And I used to go for walks.
• 8:34
  And, you know, really trying to write something, you know, it was just so difficult. Anyway, in the end,
• 8:39
  I wrote that theme. And it was almost at the last minute. I didn't really have very much time
• 8:44
  left. And he said he loved it. But there was one note. There was one note, which was at the end
• 8:51
  of the phrase of the melody where he just wanted it to close the melody, whereas I would have done
• 8:57
  gone up, but it's like one note. And I said, that's fine, Mike. No problem. That, you know, we weren't
• 9:02
  with that. So it was good. He was great to work with. And also incredibly respectful and collaborative.
• 9:11
  You know, one of the really nice things, you know, if you're working on a film is to work with a
• 9:17
  director who is collaborative and not someone who is, you know, just, just,
• 9:24
  thinks they did it all on their own, if you know what I mean, that you're a big part, you're an
• 9:28
  important part of the team. Not that that happens very often, but, but I just remember in particular,
• 9:33
  you know, he wanted me to come to the mix, the dark and everything like that. It was really nice.
• 9:38
  Because there's also, because not just that, that sort of, like I say, that incredibly sort of
• 9:41
  beautiful, rock-solid theme that Echo's right off of, but also you've got the, the opening scene
• 9:46
  has that sort of pop song that Alison Stedman's sort of teaching the kids to. And that was something that
• 9:51
  I want to say was an original composition of yours, right? Like, how did that come about? That sort of
• 9:54
  you. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, it was really nice. I mean, I'm, I mean, it was meant to be nice.
• 10:01
  And it was like, it, I mean, that took about two minutes to write. It was fun to do it, you know,
• 10:08
  and as terrible words as well. But it was good fun to do it. Yeah, because it has that energy.
• 10:14
  And it sets kind of in some ways, the sort of tone for the whole movie in some ways, that scene,
• 10:18
  and then that, that film, but in a really sort of funny, like, say, the scene's such a sort of
• 10:22
  funny little, little opener. And then you go, so I know actually the song's quite different,
• 10:25
  because obviously it's a composer. You've done so much. And I guess some of your most iconic
• 10:29
  scores are kind of your period scores. And melody, you have such a hotline for melody. And it's
• 10:33
  one of my favorite things about your music. And like that, that is so sort of different to like,
• 10:38
  obviously the rest of the score, but a lot of your other scores, I mean, like, so, yeah,
• 10:41
  it's quite different to musically. It's fun to be asked to, it's fun to do stuff that's totally
• 10:46
  different. I mean, I'm so often in that kind of case, there would be source music. You know,
• 10:56
  the film company would buy in a song or buy in something, you know, and it wouldn't be up to
• 11:00
  me to write that, because I'm meant to be doing just the score. In that case, yeah, I forgot
• 11:06
  when I'd be in that here. And I hear what you say about Mike being close to his collaborators
• 11:12
  on a, you know, on a music lover, because when we had him on the part, we talked a lot about,
• 11:15
  he was talking about all the nothing and working with Angie Dixon, who is another great composer,
• 11:20
  who worked a lot and like, you know, and how he really does care about that collaboration is,
• 11:24
  it's close. And he likes these interesting instruments, like on naked, it's like a, there's a harp,
• 11:28
  and it's like really harpsentric and different than what you normally get for, like, you know.
• 11:33
  Absolutely. I mean, I did, I did another film with him. I think it was a short film called
• 11:38
  The Short and Curly's, and that had a piccolo and a tuber in it, you know, like complete
• 11:44
  opposite ends of the things. And that was all. There was, I think there was enough money for two
• 11:48
  instruments. It was great. And you just have to, you make do with what you've got and out of it comes
• 11:53
  Yeah. And another great sort of collaboration you've had with a director is Diglis McGrath,
• 11:59
  who you worked with on Emma, which, you know, famously did Emma, Gwen of Paltrow's Emma,
• 12:03
  and like, how did that come about? And what was that relationship like? Because you guys worked
• 12:07
  together many times. Yeah, we did. Yeah, really sadly, he's no longer with us, which is really sad.
• 12:15
  How that came about was, well, I don't really know. I think I don't know what he'd heard of mine,
• 12:20
  but because he's a, he's based in, he was based in New York. And all I know is that he sent me
• 12:27
  this book to an asked if I could do it when I just had my first kid, which was 30 years ago,
• 12:33
  exactly 30 years ago now. Oh, I can't believe it. Is that correct? Here's this correct. And I was like,
• 12:41
  I mean, I'd already done quite a few films. And films in America, I didn't know whether, yeah,
• 12:46
  I would have done Benny June by then. And obviously life is sweet. And other things. And I wasn't to
• 12:52
  be persuaded because I was in deep in new, new motherhood. But he persuaded me, and I'm,
• 13:00
  and actually I'm so glad because it was, it was pretty hard switching from being someone who's
• 13:07
  really busy writing music for films and TV and things to just being, to giving it all up to
• 13:13
  be a mother. And so, so he twisted my arm. Also, when I read the script of Emma, I'd done Emma for,
• 13:20
  I knew the book really well inside out because I'd done it for A-Level English A-Level. And I
• 13:26
  didn't understand from the script. It just felt so condensed. And, you know, Jane Austen is,
• 13:32
  I think I was taking my support seriously, that, you know, that there was all this, I mean, this
• 13:39
  depth, you know, Emma's a big, big book. And yet it had been condensed into something sort of really
• 13:46
  quite quick and humorous. And so I wasn't sure. I wasn't really paying attention. But anyway,
• 13:54
  he kissed my arm and I did it. And I loved working with him. He was, he was great. He was really
• 14:00
  particular about certain things and certain, certain ways of working with comedy. And I love that.
• 14:10
  But he all, he always liked all my music in terms of themes and melodies and things like that. He
• 14:16
  was always, he was the easiest person to work with him. Delightful and really funny as well. But,
• 14:23
  and actually, I think his Emma is a wonderful amount now. I think it's a great film. It's
• 14:28
  some, it's, it's funny and touching. And, you know, very human in a way. That's good.
• 14:38
  Yeah. And you're a composer who's always, for me, had such a great sort of, as I say,
• 14:42
  kind of hotline for melodies and like, your melodies are so beautiful. And with a film like Emma,
• 14:47
  where that, that melody is kind of, it's somebody's at the heart of the film. Like Emma's theme,
• 14:52
  you know, I guess it's quite sort of the ultimate question. But like, where do they come from for you?
• 14:55
  I mean, do they come from looking at a performance on, in, on the rushes or on screen and going,
• 15:00
  I hone in on that and you follow your nose or like, for you, where do those come from? There's really
• 15:04
  beautiful idiosyncratic melodies. I don't know. I think, I think, I, I love writing melodies and I
• 15:10
  challenge myself to write melodies that are, that are like a complete sentence, like so they have
• 15:21
  a beginning and middle and an end. And they're not just like really really short, like, like motives,
• 15:27
  so that they have a, they, they, they speak a whole sentence as it were. And so, you know,
• 15:33
  Emma is an example of me wanting to write a melody that has enough legs that I can make
• 15:40
  it run throughout a whole film and develop it in lots of different ways, which is what I did.
• 15:46
  It's got a huge B section to it, which is sort of a, it's in a major key, but the, the B section of it,
• 15:55
  you know, it goes into, the song disappears behind the clouds. And it just, it, you know, it becomes
• 16:02
  more reflective and then it comes back again. So, I don't know. I think it comes from a wonderful
• 16:09
  teacher I had. I'm a music teacher I had when I was 16, 17, who challenged me to develop my ideas.
• 16:18
  And I, and you know how one teacher can teach you so much. He's a composer called Roger Stepching.
• 16:24
  And he, well, I showed him what I was doing. He said, yes, that's great. Now, can you develop that?
• 16:30
  And, and it was something, so it's something sort of like lodged in my compositional brain, which is
• 16:37
  to, you know, always try and make, make more of something so that you, you know, it becomes richer.
• 16:45
  And it was that push that sort of enabled you to go that distance and, you know, from that teacher,
• 16:50
  because I hear what you're saying, like that is so important.
• 16:52
  Yeah, no, it's, you know, you know, when, when a teacher or a person, you know, just says something
• 16:57
  that's practical with you and you, and you think, oh, okay, no, I could actually make that better.
• 17:02
  I could actually make this into something longer. How do I, how do I, you know, and it's such a key
• 17:10
  lesson for anyone doing anything creative, I think, is to, you know, how can you, can you, can you push
• 17:18
  that? Can you push the boundaries there? In whatever way it is. It's good.
• 17:23
  Yeah, and then, and, and go back to Emma then, because the film came out, it was a huge success,
• 17:27
  you know, it was this first film and it sort of, you know, and, you know, Gwyneth Poucher as well, of course, and you,
• 17:32
  I mean, you guys went to the Oscars and you, you won, you know, the first Oscar ever won by a female composer for
• 17:36
  your work on that film. I mean, what was that like? That must have been an extraordinary, I mean, experience.
• 17:40
  I'm sure you asked it a lot, but like, you know, I know it was, it was amazing. It was, it was, uh,
• 17:46
  it was a total surprise and, uh, you know, it, well, it was, it was like weird to, to, to go to the
• 17:55
  parties and weird to go to, weird to go to the whole thing anyway. And, you know, it was so out of
• 18:00
  the blue for me because I was living in England. You know, I think that's often the case for
• 18:06
  people who are sort of homegrown here. We think, you know, it's such a million miles away.
• 18:13
  After that, I spent a lot of time, quite a lot of time in Ella. And actually, I spent quite a
• 18:17
  bit of time before in Ella as well, but I was never going to become naturalised out there.
• 18:22
  So, you know, the Oscars, it was, it was great. I mean, but it was surreal, you know,
• 18:27
  travelling to this ceremony in a stretch limo with the sunroof and standing up looking,
• 18:34
  and as far as I could see ahead of me and behind me with stretch limos all going to the Oscars.
• 18:38
  And they'd all come from San Diego and all over the place. They all, they'll go there for,
• 18:42
  that weekend. It was just unbelievable. And you just think, what, you know, what is this anyway?
• 18:48
  It was good. It was fun. And then you win the Oscar and Debbie Reynolds, I want to say he's
• 18:52
  presenting it. I mean, that's got to be surreal as well. Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher's
• 18:56
  over there on the side of the stage. Like, what's going on? Do you know what? I was, I was just like,
• 19:04
  I think I was like frozen rabbit in the headlights. I just wandered up into the stage and then
• 19:10
  wandered off and into this wall of photographers and, you know, it's just like crazy.
• 19:16
  I don't know. I mean, I watched back that David the, you know,
• 19:18
  the ceremony, that bit, the ceremony of you winning the Oscars. And I feel like you look pretty
• 19:21
  confident to me, like strolling up there and you were like, yeah, yeah. As you should be, as you
• 19:26
  should be. You can't walk very fast because you have a camera person in front of you kneeling down
• 19:32
  on the floor, going backwards and you're walking in front of him and you're thinking, like, God,
• 19:36
  it's going to take ages to get to the stage. And all the slapping is going to stop by the time I get
• 19:41
  there. And those worries. But actually, it's, I think they go to a commercial break. I think they
• 19:46
  think they do or clip of the film or something in the televised version. It's amazing. And then
• 19:51
  and also another thing that's amazing to me about that, because as I say, you were that it was,
• 19:54
  it was an important moment because you were the first female composer to win the about award.
• 19:58
  And then, and since that, that night, it was 96. In the last 30 years, only two of
• 20:02
  all female composers have won it. I mean, Anne Dudley won it the next year. I know for four
• 20:06
  months, and then Hilda Goudendotta won it for Joker several years back. I mean, what do you think
• 20:11
  that says about the film sort of industry and the film music? Is it harder for women to get those
• 20:15
  opportunities to get to that? Still is. Yeah, no, it is still harder. I mean, I feel that
• 20:22
  you know, women have to work really, really hard to prove. You know, to, I think, I think, I think,
• 20:32
  just we tend to do it in, in many ways, in our life professionally. Without thinking, we have
• 20:41
  to work really hard and share that we've worked really hard and that we're really competent,
• 20:46
  and that we can handle. You know, if you're working on a big,
• 20:52
  a big movie, a big studio movie, you are responsible for a massive budget and loads,
• 21:00
  you know, loads of people and, you know, big orchestra studios, a huge spend. And, you know,
• 21:07
  you've, and you've got to, you know, you're in charge of it. What can I say? You're like the head
• 21:13
  of that department as it were. And, you know, so you need both shoulders. And it's something that I
• 21:22
  never, I have never really paid any attention to because I always only consider myself a composer,
• 21:31
  not a female composer. But I come across it all the time with meeting other women composers who,
• 21:39
  who find, who are very, just very conscious of the difficulties. Whereas I've been lucky,
• 21:45
  I never have really. You know, I've come up against it once or twice, but, but not, but,
• 21:53
  sometimes, you know, I've come up against it once or twice about being sort of pigeonholed about
• 22:00
  doing some, only writing schools about or being more comfortable writing music about a feminine
• 22:09
  protagonist or, you know what I mean. And I, which is fine by me, I'm very happy to, to work on,
• 22:16
  on thumbs of any kind, but, but then the, the challenge of, you know, well,
• 22:22
  can you Rachel write the music for? Can you reassure me that you can write the music for a more,
• 22:28
  a more masculine or, you know, sort of more a sort of male dominated film about war, for example.
• 22:37
  How do we know you can do that? Which is just people's perception.
• 22:42
  And yeah, you, you obviously, you've managed that so well. I mean, obviously, doing stuff like
• 22:46
  Shoklaire and then the Manchurian candidates so close together, like such different styles and,
• 22:50
  and tones, again, different energies. Yeah. They work so beautifully and being so adept,
• 22:54
  obviously, the variety of work. And being a composer, you have to be, yeah, like a budget master,
• 22:59
  you have to be, you know, the head of the department in some ways. You have to be really good
• 23:03
  of people, either people's skills. You have to also know something about music is what you have
• 23:07
  to be also, you know, a composer. And it's like I'm a lot, it's a multi-disciplined sort of thing.
• 23:11
  And it's an interpersonal thing like any sort of film crap. What's really interesting,
• 23:15
  that a lot of composers, a lot of them, I think, quite a lot of composers are quite introverted people.
• 23:24
  You know, tends to go with the territory being someone who's created is they tend to be quite
• 23:29
  introverted. That does not go with selling, with selling yourself and selling your ideas and,
• 23:35
  you know, giving people huge amounts of confidence about what you do. And I'm always curious about,
• 23:42
  you know, how we come across, because we have to be, we do have to be mind readers, we have to be
• 23:51
  very good at picking up subtle cues about what people, you know, what directors are really
• 23:58
  looking for. And they're often not good at giving direction, or they give misleading direction.
• 24:04
  And, you know, that's really tricky, because it can send you off on the wrong path.
• 24:11
  So there's a lot of psychology in it.
• 24:15
  I was going to say like, because I know some directors, I feel as composers say before, like,
• 24:18
  you know, if they're talking to a director, the director might find it really hard to communicate
• 24:22
  exactly what they want when it comes to music, because music is so objective. And I've heard
• 24:25
  composers say that, ideally, they should speak emotionally. Don't talk in musical terms, because
• 24:30
  it's often, if they don't have that musical background, it just becomes a bit muddled muddied.
• 24:34
  I mean, with you, yeah, I completely agree. There's nothing worse than, you know, you think,
• 24:40
  oh God, you're starting to work with someone who says, oh, I'm quite musical. I'm like,
• 24:43
  I really like this, since we mentioned, but you have to deal with all those things. Those are
• 24:48
  like the different things, you know, I was, yeah, the less, the more they can talk, I agree,
• 24:55
  in emotions, the better, really. So that's how you prefer your directors to
• 24:59
  communicate is emotionally. Yeah, and your music is so emotional and beautiful. I mean,
• 25:05
  the listening back to it and the run up to this chat, it was just so wonderful to dive back into
• 25:09
  some of those scores that I knew and some of the ones I was listening with. And like I say,
• 25:12
  before we started talking, chatting, I mean, all of a twist, your score for all of a twist was
• 25:16
  really my gateway into your work. And I remember seeing that when I was nine. And again, like another
• 25:21
  great sort of, like Emma, great piece of period literature, you know, well, it's, you know,
• 25:26
  Austin, and then you're doing Dickens. What was your starting approach working on that film?
• 25:30
  Because I could say it's such a rousing score, but beautiful. Thank you. Well, one thing, so I,
• 25:36
  I asked, um, you know, uh, Polanski about, I mean, it was amazing working, getting,
• 25:45
  getting to work with him because he's, you know, such a famous, um, brilliant filmmaker,
• 25:52
  but, um, was, I wanted to know, because all of a twist is, you know, it's a really dark story.
• 25:58
  And yet, it's a story which, you know, it's sort of considered for family audiences.
• 26:08
  If not children, you know, and it's, and so I said, you know, and a huge part of
• 26:13
  what I do and how I would score it would be, you know, for Bill Sykes, how dark do I go
• 26:22
  with the music? I could make it really frightening, or I could make it, I could
• 26:27
  dial back a bit. So I said to him, how dark do you want this to be for it? And he said,
• 26:33
  good, good question. He said, but okay, he said, if you think about, um, what,
• 26:39
  Disney's animation of Snow White, how dark that is, and you remember how terrifying
• 26:46
  that is, even though it's a cartoon, it's an animation, but it's absolutely terrifying.
• 26:51
  He said, then, you know, we can be, you can be as dark as anything, you know, on the twist.
• 26:57
  So that's, I took my cue from that. Which is quite interesting, if you think about it, because,
• 27:03
  uh, you know, there's, I mean, it's true in Dickens, anyway, I did another dip, and so I did
• 27:08
  it one with them. Thuck my breath. I did Nickles, Nickaby. But, um, it's, it's full of, you know,
• 27:16
  human beings and, uh, darkness and also comedy, like sort of things that are very funny and
• 27:24
  eccentric, but also really dark and cruelty. Absolutely. And that's what resonated with me when
• 27:31
  I first watched it, because I hadn't really seen a film that, you know, yeah, was so honest about,
• 27:36
  yeah, the cruelty of the time and the cruelty to children, the fact that, you know, the danger,
• 27:40
  like it's a, it's ostensibly a family film, but like, you know, it's a PG that film, but there is,
• 27:45
  you know, there is, the date of the threat of hanging is, you know, hang, hang over the whole film.
• 27:49
  But that was really sort of fresh for like a nine-year-old kid, you know, version, you know,
• 27:53
  who, uh, hadn't seen through that before. I really, and I had that near-realist kind of streak in
• 27:57
  it, which I really liked about it, you know, and that was very different. He was honest about,
• 28:01
  and the score reflected that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, he, well, as he's very musical,
• 28:09
  he's directed a lot of opera. He was, he was entirely happy for me to orchestrate everything,
• 28:14
  however I wanted. Um, he wanted to know, uh, all the themes, and I played him, I, I didn't do demos
• 28:23
  for him, but I, I made, I did piano, as it were, I played everything for him on the piano. I said,
• 28:28
  this is where the music is going to come, it's going to sound like this, and I played it to picture
• 28:32
  with him. And he said, that's great. I'm happy with that. I'm happy with this. And I said,
• 28:36
  do you want, you know, when it comes to orchestration, he said, you know how to orchestrate.
• 28:40
  That's your job. I know my job. I'm here editing and directing, you know, whatever from before.
• 28:48
  And that, that was really nice. And I really noted that because there's so, so often, um,
• 28:57
  there's now you, you, you have to show everything in a, in a demo mock-up. The directors and
• 29:03
  producers want to know exactly everything. They want to have a really close look at everything
• 29:07
  before, you know, they side up on it before you go and record it. Um, and it was just refreshing
• 29:14
  to have someone who said, no, no, no, I don't want you doing it. Lots, lots of directors are like that.
• 29:18
  But, um, he was particularly, um, so it's like, so it's almost like the directors' points of view
• 29:23
  kind of helps you safeguard your vision when it comes, because yeah, I hear that like presentations
• 29:27
  can be a tough process. And there's almost too many cooks in the kitchen when it comes to like,
• 29:31
  oh, change this, change this. And like that, it's felt like such a hard thing to navigate,
• 29:35
  because like you say, it goes into that skill set of being a composer, you have to be a,
• 29:38
  a diplomat, you have to be a, you know, a people person, you know, all these other things.
• 29:42
  And like, how do you, how do you manage that yourself? How have you sort of, what strategies have
• 29:46
  you found to sort of circumnavigate that? And I guess preserve what you think is the good music?
• 29:52
  Well, yeah, it can be really frustrating. Well, I mean, I can think of, I can think of one
• 29:58
  example on a film where there, um, studios started coming in with different ideas from the director,
• 30:09
  who was a well-known, who is a very well-known director, and he had his own ideas, which were,
• 30:16
  I don't want anything too emotional, nothing too schmaltz, I don't want to, you know, too many
• 30:20
  strings, you know, making everything too emotional. Um, I concur with that. I don't want to go over
• 30:26
  the top or make anything too sweet, but the studio are really pushing that side. And we were getting
• 30:31
  very close to recording, and there wasn't, and I couldn't take, I, I don't want to take direction
• 30:37
  from too lots of people. Um, so I had this great idea, which was, I thought it was a great idea,
• 30:43
  and it worked out really well, actually, which was that I continued working for the director.
• 30:48
  I'd written all the themes by then, and we employed, um, a wonderful other composer to work with
• 30:55
  my themes, addressing the studios, um, requests for more emotion here and there. And so it was,
• 31:02
  it all still stayed being my music, but my music was, and, and then that kept things clean, and it,
• 31:11
  you know, then, then I, and also, I was thinking, then the director can go and battle it further
• 31:18
  down the line with the, um, you know, with the producers about which, which version went in,
• 31:24
  and, and it worked great. As opposed to, you know, killing myself trying to do it from every
• 31:30
  single angle, that, that would have just been terrible. There wasn't time. But I'm lucky that
• 31:35
  I have the experience to know that. I think if I come across that situation when I was, you know,
• 31:42
  in my 30s, it would have been, there's already enough stress with, uh, with big projects going on,
• 31:48
  you know, just, they need that. Just for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's not, I mean, it's just really hard.
• 31:54
  Yeah. I mean, it sounds like that sounds like a really clever solution to that problem. I
• 31:57
  wouldn't do if anyone, but you passed it on to any other composers like, oh, you know, keep this in mind.
• 32:01
  Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I'm sure five of the people have done it. I'm sure I will have
• 32:05
  the people that, you know, it's, you've got to be working on a film that's got a big enough budget,
• 32:08
  you know? Yeah. Yeah. Not the money. And also, you've got to be, you've, you've got to have
• 32:13
  enough experience to say, hey, hang on. No, I'm not going to do this, you know, which is, which,
• 32:18
  which comes with experience. So it's good. Totally. And as I, as I say, you know, your melodies,
• 32:24
  some of my favorite things about your music are those beautiful melodies that you, that you've
• 32:28
  devised over the years. And something that I'll be talking to with a couple of the composers
• 32:31
  we've had on the pod, like Stephen Price and Murray Gold as well, is, yeah, is the current sort of,
• 32:35
  I guess, state of the music industry and not just with film music, but more generally,
• 32:39
  where it seems to me that like melodies becoming less and less prized as a, as a, as a, as a, as a,
• 32:44
  as an element in music, almost in some ways, other elements, like, I guess, like, music seems to
• 32:50
  me sometimes to becoming a bit more, more underscore. And the met and has, you know, almost like it
• 32:54
  shouldn't be noticed as much. And melodies, something that is crying, and especially your melodies,
• 32:58
  are things that cry out to be noticed, because I, and do listen to in the rest of, because they're
• 33:02
  memorable. And so, and I do find quite a lot of film music that he says, and like, say, more,
• 33:06
  even like pop music, I feel like there are fewer catchy tunes around these days than there were
• 33:11
  in years maybe gone by. And I just wanted to ask like what your opinion on that was as someone who
• 33:15
  is, who has such great gift from melody, whoever melody, if you've noticed that, like, melodies are
• 33:19
  becoming less and less prized. Oh, definitely, completely, completely. But I actually, yeah, I,
• 33:25
  well, one of the reasons is it touches on what we were just talking about, which is, well,
• 33:34
  the fact that things, the fact that films are the picture itself, the picture lock is
• 33:45
  in flux, right up until the scoring and beyond often, which means that the composer is writing
• 33:52
  music to a changing thing the whole time. And therefore, the less you're relying on a melody,
• 33:59
  the more you, you're, you're just sort of like bubbling along with something which all different
• 34:04
  cells, which can be sort of put together without having to think about or worry about any melody,
• 34:10
  the easier it is, because it's about the only way of coping with the massive number of picture
• 34:16
  changes. And you know, you just got to be prepared to chop off your music and do it differently
• 34:22
  the whole time, which, so it's a, that's the cost. But also, I think it's, you know, it's,
• 34:32
  it's kind of just the way things are going at the moment. And there's some, you know, really
• 34:38
  interesting brilliant music out there, but it really has changed. And there are different,
• 34:44
  I don't know. What do I think? I like writing melodies. And I, you know, I, I think that to add a
• 34:56
  melody to, you know, to a film or to a TV series to give it an identity, because it's about
• 35:04
  identity, you hang so much more on it. I mean, if you think back to, we were talking about
• 35:09
  Life Is Weed, it's, it's, it gives a character to a project and an emotional, and an emotional
• 35:21
  story that happens somewhere else in the mind for the, for the viewer. And I think, you know, they,
• 35:28
  I don't know, I think, I think that's something that the, that makes film, film music so loved by so
• 35:35
  many people. That's why so many people are going into film music concerts. And it's the melodies.
• 35:40
  Or it's the feeling that you get. I mean, so, I mean, it's, it's, and I think we're in the kind of
• 35:45
  transition. I don't know. And all of it's interesting. Or, you know, everyone has different skills and
• 35:52
  some, you know, it's there. But, but you're completely right. There's less melody. And, you know,
• 35:58
  in terms of talking about long melodies, like I was talking about earlier. I mean, if you look at
• 36:03
  something like the Godfather, that has a whole melody that's, you know, and those are the kind of
• 36:09
  things that I, I love doing too, you know, is, is writing like a whole melody that there's just
• 36:15
  no way you can do that. Except for, you know, on the occasion. But, you know, one of the things I
• 36:21
  love doing in, in films is looking for a montage, looking, you know, we, you get a film studying on
• 36:28
  the film. You, you look for the places where, you know, you can really do something musically.
• 36:34
  That interests me. You know, if there isn't enough, there are enough places for that. It's difficult.
• 36:40
  Also, there's too much music in, in movies. Now, it's just like constant. You know, it's, it's,
• 36:50
  we're not trusted as, as viewers to watch a film without being helped a lot by music and all
• 36:56
  and, and I, I much prefer cleaner films with less music personally. Yeah. And, and I think, and it's
• 37:03
  like you say, it's not that there are, isn't great stuff out there. Still being, you know, there are
• 37:06
  great composers and great, these have been made. Absolutely. But yeah, as you say, very interesting
• 37:11
  stuff and, and the landscape is changing. But yeah, the melody, I do think at the moment anyway,
• 37:15
  there's a slightly less of a fashion for it. And again, but, but maybe because it's riskier,
• 37:19
  because melody, melody can really make or break something and give it the identity. But if it works,
• 37:24
  like, say, like the Godfather, like people still know that neither ought to score, you know,
• 37:29
  50, 60 years on, that's one of the key things. And that's one of the great powers of like,
• 37:33
  yeah, great melody. And it's a phase that we're going through. Things fall in and out of fashion,
• 37:37
  things change, you know, like maybe, or, you know, come back around, we'll see, you know, it's
• 37:41
  said, the landscape is always changing. So it's, it's interesting. Yeah. No, I mean, I really welcome
• 37:48
  different things and different, you know, I really welcome music that's different from mine.
• 37:55
  And because it's, I'm really interested in, you know, in all sorts and all kinds. So, yeah,
• 38:03
  I mean, I think it's a good thing that ends moving everything. Yeah. I mean, on that subject,
• 38:08
  I was wondering what your opinion was. As I guess, as I say, like you've composed so many sort of
• 38:12
  classic, like, like, you know, period scores that, like, you know, while your visual are more
• 38:17
  sort of an agronistic sort of period scores, things like Mary Antoinette, the Sophia Coppola film
• 38:21
  that are more, they're really playing with like, oh, you know, what key we're not, we're not using
• 38:24
  instruments or even like we're using pop songs for, to underscore Mary Antoinette. I mean, like,
• 38:28
  whilst you're approached to those as well, that kind of different approach. And would you ever go?
• 38:32
  Great. It's great. I don't know that from, but I think that's great, you know, and, um,
• 38:38
  oh, God, I'm not going to, I, uh, weathering heights. Yes. Yes. Brilliant. Brilliant example.
• 38:46
  Just fantastic. I think, I think it's great. I, you know, I really enjoy different takes on
• 38:52
  period films. And, you know, I, you know, when I did ever, or, you know, I was very much thinking,
• 39:01
  you know, in those, at that time, at that particular time, you know, I would never have put an
• 39:07
  instrument in, into the score that wasn't, that was wildly not of the period, say, for example,
• 39:14
  like a saxophone or, um, and I was, I was sort of thinking about what was in the limits, not
• 39:19
  completely, but, but, you know, I wanted the music, the score to live in that world. And now it's
• 39:24
  so refreshing, the, you know, see other takes on period films. It's, I think it's great.
• 39:31
  And, and for you, personally, do you have like a personal favorite piece of music or a cue or
• 39:35
  soundtrack that you've done? And do you have like a piece of music that you think is your best work?
• 39:38
  But you think, oh, that's the best, but that's my personal. That's the one that is kind of
• 39:42
  closest to my heart. Are they different? Or are they like, that's quite a big question, I know,
• 39:46
  but I mean, it is, I mean, you cannot help being affected by what other people think, but, um,
• 39:55
  I think, I think one of, I've, I've really enjoyed working with Jonathan Demi and I had an
• 40:01
  extraordinary experience working with him three times and the love it was an amazing experience.
• 40:07
  For me, it's more about the experience than anything else. And, you know, that and never let me go
• 40:11
  would be another one. That was an incredibly important project for me, something I felt,
• 40:21
  you know, so deeply connected to. I, I love the book, um, side hospitals would be another one.
• 40:29
  And Shokkala would be another one. And, um, but lots. I mean, they're, they're, you know,
• 40:39
  I really loved working with Doug McGrath as well. I mean, we enjoy a joy. And also, I really, I really
• 40:44
  enjoy, um, enjoyed working with, uh, Lona Schuffick on, um, their finest, um, and one day. That's
• 40:53
  fun to you. A lot of fun. Yeah. There's again, another example of Melody, she wanted to meet,
• 40:59
  she wanted a melody for one day. And, uh, so we worked a lot on that. So,
• 41:05
  because they'll let me go like that melody. That was like, you started with the, was it a bit,
• 41:09
  I'm not even thinking that there was the chords on top. And then the melody kind of came underneath,
• 41:12
  the chords were where the starting point, it was, it was, it was, is that, am I right?
• 41:15
  It's saying that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Quite unconventional sort of starts. And,
• 41:20
  but yeah, beautiful sort of fruit line. Thank you.
• 41:24
  For the whole movie. One last, one last question we asked, um, people who cooked, you know,
• 41:28
  I guess you come on up a picture. Is there anyone out there right now? Because you worked
• 41:31
  just so many great people. The people you just read it off. I mean, oh my god. Like, are there,
• 41:34
  is anyone out there right now be there? You're an artist or filmmaker who you're a fan of,
• 41:39
  who you haven't worked with before that you would love to work with? Like, like, my music and
• 41:42
  their images, like, ah, I could do that. Is that that? Yeah, there were a lot. Yeah.
• 41:49
  That's a, do you put me on spot? I, um, there's a lot. I've always, I've always had a joke that
• 41:57
  I'd love to work with Martin Scorsese. I don't think it's going to happen.
• 42:01
  I think that's going to happen. You never know. You never know. You never know.
• 42:06
  You never know. I mean, I can't think of, you know, off hand. I mean, it would be great to work with.
• 42:13
  Oh, I can think of too many, but I do. Yeah. Um, um, well, I will answer that question in,
• 42:22
  in as much as I really just wonder what with people who are really good filmmakers who are,
• 42:31
  you know, using their own voice and wanting to, you know, collaborate with music in an interesting
• 42:40
  way. I mean, that's really kind of what my artist is. I hear that. And Scorsese, you know, like,
• 42:46
  because obviously everyone talks about his pop, the pop soundtracks, but like, there is a really
• 42:49
  interesting score in a lot of things like, like, like, Cape Fear, like, you know, that's a really
• 42:53
  interesting score. So, like, who do I know? Yeah. It's an awesome aspect of his. So, and I
• 42:58
  feel like that could be interesting. I'm sure he's very clear in, you know, obviously, he loves
• 43:01
  music. So he's very sort of got his, an age of innocence, another beautiful score, like, you know,
• 43:04
  he's got his fingers in there. So I'm sure, you know, you know, you know, he's shooting a new movie,
• 43:08
  like, you know, yeah, you know, he's still going. Fantastic. Well, thank you. What can I say, Rachel?
• 43:14
  Thank you so much for coming on the Huff picture. It's been such a pleasure to chat to you. And
• 43:19
  I feel like privileged to have your little insight into your studio there as well. That's really
• 43:22
  a little window. That's cool. But yeah, as I say, like, I've been a fan of yours for 20 years now.
• 43:27
  And yeah, what can I say? I hope, you know, I hope you keep on giving us, you know,
• 43:31
  brilliant, more brilliant work. And yeah, thank you so much for coming on the poor.
• 43:34
  That's cool. I enjoyed it. Okay. Thanks. Thanks a lot.
• 43:46
  Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for listening to my chat with Rachel Portman.
• 43:50
  Remember to like and subscribe to the podcast so you'd have a miss an episode and stay tuned for more
• 43:54
  exciting interviews and guests coming soon on after picture.