Thomas Newman Quotes

It's rare that scenes last more than 2 or 3 minutes, so sound helps segue from one scene to another.

Well, I think, I certainly used backward music in Sea of Monsters. I can't remember in the Sea of Time. I would tend to do that all the time, you know? I tended to do all sorts of weird things. Just to get effects.

I always relish the idea of collaborating with the director on creating the sound world, the sound spectrum, and the sound environment of the film. I use every means at my disposal to create a score that is as strong and powerful to enhance the director's vision for the film.

I'm usually the last man on the totem pole. Except for the sound effects and the final sound mix, the score is the last element to be added to a picture.

As a film composer I deal with short bursts of musical ideas that are defined to a large extent by what's happening on the screen, by not only narrative and action, but staying out of the way of dialogue, sound effects.

When you're making a film you start living with it, and I find myself sitting down and figuring out a sound or melody that would go with a film, or a particular period. It's not brain surgery, you just kind of feel it along.

Oh, the foghorns... even the foghorns, they're all brass. It's something by Ingrid Marshal called Fog Tropes. It's not a sound effect. It's an actual piece of music. If you listen to what's going on after he has a flashback about his wife you'll hear... it sounds like the humpback whales in a way. But it's all music. And we use it again later, too.

I like films where the music and the sound design, at times, are almost indistinguishable.

There's always the pressure on the director of how to transition from one scene to another, especially when it can really be oblique on 'Game of Thrones.'

When I think of Morricone, more than his using a specific instrument or a specific sound, it's his way of approaching music that sticks out.

I had always loved cartoons, especially 'Bugs Bunny,' and I found I enjoyed making animated films. Even a 30-second commercial involved drawing and painting, storytelling, not to mention actors, music, and sound effects.

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 don't know - music in film, for me, is not another part of a soundtrack; it is something that also helps to approach a character, to foresee the type of image - you see what I mean - it's like a part of the process.

For me, shooting, editing, and scoring rely on rhythm.

I don't care how good a song is - if it holds back the storyline, stalls the plot, your audience will reject it.

And I think that I'd be a natural for scoring horror movies.

Rewriting isn't just about dialogue; it's the order of the scenes, how you finish a scene, how you get into a scene.

I love writing music for film and TV, but putting it into a video game is twice as fun because it needs to be repeatable and joyous.

With a documentary, you can cut away, you can do jump cuts, cut to a photograph at any point to bridge two scenes.

I never watch the dailies. What I usually do is have a look at the rough or final cut, and I just get something from the story. Sometimes I start composing even before the director has shot anything. The dailies don't help me at all.

I think, for me, a way to really come up with new ideas and come up with new ways of writing music is to create a unique sound palette or soundscape for all the films I'm working on.

You can use existing music in a film, but creating a soundtrack is very different. One note can be enough.

I would like to do more film scoring, period. Whether it is a big film, a small film, or just anything. I feel like I have a lot to learn, and what better way to do it than on the job?

At the beginning of each project, I like to create a palette of sound for that particular project.

You want to say as little as you can and get the most punch out of it, always with the knowledge that people are not in the theater to listen to your music so much as to respond to the movie. You're a part of that experience.