Most film scores have one vibe, and they stick with it.
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.
Sometimes, going to see one opera is hard because you don't know the genre. Good opera is like good wine. There are so many varieties, and it helps to inform you about what you like when you see a lot.
In 'Secret Life of Pets,' it's a huge orchestra - really, really big.
Beautiful film music can be made relevant to any period.
I think 'Easy Rider' might have been the first time that someone made a film using found music instead of an orchestral score. No one had really used found music in a movie before, except to play on radios or when someone was singing in a scene.
Now the big question is if you are going to go to all the trouble of setting an opera and making all that music and so on, there's got to be some aspect that you can do in an opera that really makes it worth while.
What's amazing about 'Game of Thrones' is that it's set in a fantasy world; it's a fantasy story. So I always say that with the score, we're open to do whatever we want.
There's very little synthesized sound in the 'Arrival' score. There are a couple of synthesized beats in there, but 99 percent of the sounds in there are acoustic in origin and either played or sung by a musician or a singer and recorded in a room.
I've always loved opera; it never occurred to me that I would write a proper libretto.
Well, the very best operas are the ones written by the very best composers.
I think Mozart's operas 'The Marriage of Figaro' and 'Don Giovanni' are the two most perfect ever written. The music is magical.
It's easy for me to write a quasi-virtuosic orchestral score. What is harder is to do that and say, all right, that works, but how else can you do it?
I'd like to direct more operas.
One of the things I was never thrilled about with 'Medal of Honor' was that it was non-stop music.
One can't judge Wagner's opera Lohengrin after a first hearing, and I certainly don't intend to hear it a second time.
I started out writing music for theatre and contemporary dance, so there has always been a dramatic and narrative element in my music.
'Lost,' at its core, is a science-fiction show. Live music helps lend an air of legitimacy to this otherwise crazy storyline. It makes a big difference.
I was in a state of gnawing, sensuous agitation that excited continually both blood and nerves when I sketched out the music for 'Tannhauser' and brought it to completion.
I don't know if I would write an opera, maybe because of the words. But yes, I would be really excited to do it. I would certainly write a ballet or... I've done a lot of stage before.
I heard Joby Talbot's Hovercraft piece for orchestra and felt its immediate physical impact - visceral, unsettling, hungry and direct. These short five minutes became our keystone to unlocking a strangely seductive score that tensions the aggressive force of the White Stripes with the enigmatic beauty of Talbot's own compositions.
Well lately I have listening to a lot of movie soundtracks.
The colors of 'The Nutcracker' ballet score have become a part of the vocabulary of film music. It's where so much of the 19th-century romantic music that I call upon as a film composer is rooted.
I've written a very long piece of music recently, the 'Veil of the Temple,' which lasts about seven hours. It's really a kind of vigil. It takes place during the night, waiting for the resurrection of Christ.
I feel at home in an orchestral score.
