Cliff Martinez Quotes

When you're working on film music, you're only working on 20, 30-minute sections at a time.

When I was doing 'The Sopranos', I liked putting music together with the film; that was my favorite part of it.

Every time I see a film or TV show, I think about how that composer made those choices and how that director envisioned music and how that could work onstage or in a film and how you could support that even further by putting lyrics to it.

I am only 30, and music is like a subject for me. I work like a student in every film.

I try and write a fair amount in the beginning without the movie. And then when I do get the movie I create these demos, just mock-ups, and I throw them up against the picture and some of it sticks and some of it doesn't. But I'm very careful before I play anything to picture, because that's such a profoundly important moment.

Plus, we spend most of our time writing music. Most of the time is spent in the studio in my house.

I write a lot of music in my time off and I compose most of the songs on guitar. I've actually gone into the studio and recorded a few things, but it's tough trying to sell a song. It's all about finding that hook, that melody.

I always said when I was younger, I wanted to write film music, and I think that's what my ultimate dream is.

So film music is something I absolutely wanna get involved in.

I've been doing a lot of music for films and television for quite a few years.

I am inspired just by the way a scene can be interpreted by the actors. It can make a huge difference on the type of music that you write. It's best for me if I don't work at all on a project until the movie is shot and I have some sort of edit in front of me.

When you're editing the film, you use a temp track. So you're putting music in there for a rough cut to keep track of what's going on. It can be a hindrance if wrong, it can be an enormous asset if you get it right.

For the most part, I like to record music as I write it.

Normally, when people compose for film, you give them the film, and they look at it, and they compose it.

I've done some music for films and I really enjoy doing it.

In the future, I kind of like the idea of doing music for film. I think that would be a nice job. I've always liked the sound aspect in movies. I guess once I have more instruments under my belt, it could be something I could do.

The way we work at Pixar is we write the script, but then we quickly move on into story reel, which is basically like a comic-book version of the film. And then we do our own dialogue and music and sound effects, all in an effort to be able to basically sit in the theater and watch the movie before we shoot it, essentially.

I listen to music cinematically. I think about music and how it would make me feel when it's put to an image, a moving image, and I love it.

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I'm writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I'm going to play for the opening sequence.

In most films music is brought in at the end, after the picture is more or less locked, to amplify the emotions the filmmaker wants you to feel.

Jerry Bruckheimer is the most hands-on producer that I've worked with. Jerry's very involved in the music, and he's such a fan of film. When you watch him playing back the cues to the picture, he's like a kid in a candy store.

There's a lot of money in doing score music. You can get a chance to get nominated for an Oscar; I would love to get nominated again.

I've been really enjoying writing articles and writing music and music for movies.

Let's say music is needed for only 43 seconds of film. You have to score it so it is an entity, so it won't bother anyone when it ends so quickly. Or if a song runs 2 minutes and 45 seconds, but the titles run a minute longer, you have to arrange that song so it doesn't get repetitious.

I've played guitar and piano for a while, so it's really fun to play music on film.