Thomas Newman Quotes

When Kubrick called me about 'The Shining,' it was very strange. He first asked me to write music for his film, but I instead gave him suggestions about some of my pieces. I told him about 'The Awakening of Jacob,' which he did use in 'The Shining.'

What I love about film music is the variety. On one movie, you might be asked to do a completely electronic score, and then another might ask you to do orchestral only.

Film music is always given a step-motherly treatment though it is the most popular form of music.

Does film music really matter to the average moviegoer? A great score, after all, can't save a bad film, and a bad score - so it's said - can't sink a good one.

There's the soundtrack to The French Connection II'I think It's my favorite soundtrack. It hasn't been released. I actually had to go and get the film and just make a recording of it to get the music.

My best film composing experience was with Elia Kazan.

I'd love to do a whole soundtrack to a movie.

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

John Barry was the first film composer I was aware of. As a teenager I owned several of his Bond soundtracks.

My biggest dream from the beginning - besides Evanescence - is scoring film and writing music for film.

Actually when I gave out the script, I gave it with a CD of all the music I wanted to put in the movie, and again, we never thought we'd get all that music.

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

I never dreamed of writing for concert or opera. I always dreamed, if I was a composer, to write music for films.

I have composed music for many city-based movies.

I wanted to be a film composer because I heard scores that could stand alone, from 'Vertigo' to 'Star Wars' to 'La Dolce Vita,' because this music has so much history. They're weighed with the history of music. They come from somewhere, they have a past.

When I was composing for 'The Villain,' I looked at it as a fan and came up with tunes accordingly.

I think there has never ever been a career like John Williams'. That whole 'Jaws' phenomenon - there's nobody that knows how to use music like Spielberg, and John is just the perfect analog to Spielberg.

When I was working on the music for this I didn't want to just use pop songs as the score - most movies do it and I've done it before.

I love touring, I love making records, but eventually all I want...I want to score. I want people to ask me to score their film or use my songs in cinematic ways. I think the ultimate media is a story that you can watch and feel and have a musical moment to. I think it's my favorite. I love watching something when music is creating motion within the motion.

I did some songs for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby. I had done a jazz album of Roxy songs, and they used bits of it in the film. It would be nice to score a movie one day.

I've done a lot of things to become what I've become, out to create and establish a musical form and I call it movie.

There's a thing about film composing and conducting in my family.

In 'Secret Life of Pets,' it's a huge orchestra - really, really big.

I've always been interested in film, so to get involved in any way in the genesis of making a film or music for a film is fascinating to me.