fw christopher young的訪問(關於蜘蛛俠3的)
因全是英文的,遲下得閒可能會譯番同埋長d囉,但對於今集易手的事情,會有深入既了解
Spider-Man 3 must have been a huge project for
you. Can you tell me about your past six months
as a film composer? How does it compare to the
other 70-80 features you’ve scored?
Yes, indeed the past six months have been very intense.
Not only did I write the music to Spider-Man 3
during that period of time, but also Ghost Rider as well
as the score for a film called Lucky You. How did Spider-
Man 3 compare to the other films I’ve worked on? Well, it
was probably the most intense experience I’ve had, only
because I knew of the tremendous importance for me to
come through on this one. I knew it was probably going
to be the most succesful movie I’ve ever worked on, the
most viewed movie I’ve ever worked on… certainly more
money had been spent on this movie alone than probably
half of all the movies I’ve worked on. So when you know
that, going into it, you know that you cannot afford to
make mistakes. Above and beyond that, because I was
very thrilled that Sam Raimi called me and asked me to
score the film and had been a fan of mine for a while, I
didn’t want to let him down, because I adore him.
What was Sam Raimi’s vision of the music in this
film? This third film seems to have even more
dark elements than the previous ones?
Well, I guess two things can be said. One is that he
was very much encouraging me to come up with melodies
that he could immediately identify. He loves quickly identifiable,
hummable tunes. And because the picture was
dark, and he had a history, as I did, of working in horror
movies, he was okay with the music getting pretty darkwhen it needed to get pretty dark – we left comic-book
land and almost went into horrorland, you know. That
was a concern with the studio in the beginning, I think.
But above and beyond that, the only thing he was really
specific about was where and when we were going to use
Danny’s themes, and in what sort of presentation would
we use them.
What do you think that Sam Raimi sees in your
music? Would you describe yourself as his “go-to”
composer?
I can’t speak for Sam because I don’t know what he
really thinks, but I’d like to believe that in my music he
sees the kind of aggressive, dramatic music that compliments
the aggressive, dramatic nature of his movies. Anyone
who knows his work knows that he’s in your face, his
movies are in your face, there’s no pussyfooting. I think
we’re cut from the same cloth, we have the same kind of
nightmares. I knew after seeing Evil Dead for the first
time that this was a director who lived in the same world
as I did, so I think there was this connection that had to
be made. I know that Sam is a melody man, he loves to be
able to hum themes from his films, and I too like the idea
of being able to come up with instantly recognizable and
hummable themes. I guess it was just the right mixture
of aggressive drama in both of our approaches to what we
do, a mutual love for instantly memorable melody and a
like-minded way of seeing life via the world of twisted
images. Am I his “go-to” composer? It appears, knock on
wood, that at this moment I am. Not only for him as a
director but also as a producer at Ghost House Films.
I’ve done both The Grudge and The Grudge 2 for him as
a producer, two films for him as a director, The Gift andSpider-Man 3 and little portions of Spider-Man 2. Hopefully
this will be the beginning of a long lasting and eternal
friendship and “good vibes” working situation.
Do you have as much of an affinity for superheroes
as you do for horror?
To be honest, I wasn’t sure that I had it in me for superheroes.
This is a new venue for me. As it turns out I’m
thrilled to say I have a complete musical affinity for superheroes.
The language for superheroes and especially
the villains that they battle are not too far removed from
the gothic horror world. A lot of what I did in Spider-Man
3 and Ghost Rider can be compared to some of the scores
I did for some of my bigger, more gothic horror films like
Hellbound and moments of Species. They’re kind of nextdoor
neighbors so I feel lucky that I have just found out I
have an affinity for both.
Were you into Spider-Man comics as a kid?
I cannot tell a lie, no, not really. I’m sure the fans will
be disgusted that the guy who wrote the score for Spider-
Man 3 was not a Spider-Man junkie as a kid. I certainly
had tremendous admiration for comics but I just didn’t
read them. I mainly read magazines that were in the fantasy
domain like Eerie and Creepy and Famous Monsters
From Film Land, Forest Ackerman’s magazine. So I was
more a monster comic/magazine fan.
Could you talk about how you became involved
with the Spider-Man movies?
It was at the very end of Spider-Man 2, close to the
release date, that I got a call from Sam asking if I could
come in to fix a few cues because Danny Elfman wasn’tavailable to make the fixes that Sam felt the music needed.
So on very short order I was asked to rewrite one of
the big moments, the scene in which Spider-Man and Doc
Ock are fighting on top of the subway and the train goes
off the ledge. That was a 4 1/2 to 5 minute scene. Earlier
on I was asked to score the scene where Doc Ock’s experiment
goes bad and he turns into the monster. So, based
on my success re-scoring those two scenes I was asked to
do Spider-Man 3.
How much music did you write – and re-write?
There was about 104 minutes of music spotted in the
movie. But, remember, when you spot 104 minutes of music,
you always have to add at least a third onto that total
for re-writes or revisions. A lot of the music was revised,
some for compositional reasons, dramatic reasons – and
a lot for picture editing purposes. Once a cue is written, if
the picture changes, of course the cue has to be changed
to acknowledge the new cut. But fortunately, the majority
of the themes that I wrote were accepted by Sam immediately.
As a matter of fact, come to think of it, I don’t think
there was a single theme that he threw out in its entirety
– he seemed to respond very favorably to them all right
from the get-go
With so many characters in Spider-Man 3, which
ones did you want to give themes to? Was it difficult
weaving all of them together?
I wanted to give new themes to all of the characters.
The biggest challenge on this movie was that there were so
many different characters. I remember when we spotted
the film we realized there was the potential to have 14-15
unique themes. I said to Sam “You know, I think we mayhave a problem here because that would be overloading
the film. You don’t want to have the audience lose touch
with the bigger story line by having too many themes and
fragmenting the film.” Still, there were a ton of themes in
the movie and coming up with memorable themes was a
challenge. They needed to somehow not only seem connected
to each other but they had to be in the same ballpark
as Danny’s themes from the previous movie so that
they would blend together. The ones that were crossovers
from the first two movies were the Spider-Man theme,
the Green Goblin theme, which I mutated a bit to make
it the Son of Green Goblin theme, and the “fate” themes,
those were the three main themes that I used throughout
the picture that were Danny’s. Of the themes that I wrote
originally, the one that was the first one to come out of
me was the Black-Suited Spidey theme. What normally
happens when I get on a movie is that I see the movie a
couple of times, then don’t watch it for about ten days,
and then I just walk around with my cassette machine
and anything that comes into my mind I will hum into
it, or go to the piano and knock it out. It’s just sort of like
throwing everything against the wall and seeing what
sticks. Surprisingly, with the Black-Suited Spidey theme,
that turned out to be the very first idea I had for that
character – and usually, you know: the first one, forget
it! It’s maybe the fifteenth one I settle on, but this was
the first one. The rest of them did take some time, but I
didn’t have a lot of time so I was fortunate in that most of
the themes that you hear came fairly quickly and didn’t
require many revisions on my part before I presented
them to Sam. Now, what makes the Black-Suited Spidey
theme unique I guess is that I had eight tuben [Wagner
tubas] playing that in unison, so that’s a really loud, sort
of hunting horn sound that distinguishes that. Of all the
new themes that I brought to the picture I would have to
say that that one is probably my favorite. The other, and
probably most colorful of the themes, was the Sandman
theme, when he is in his mammoth form. That was scored
for a very low woodwind and brass ensemble, playing the
theme in unison again, including two contrabass saxophones,
two contrabassoons, two contrabass clarinets,
and eight french horns. So again, this is a low end sound,
all in unison, and hopefully really aggressive and somewhat
ugly in nature. Then there is the Black Goo, which
is not a theme, it’s more like a soundbite. In that case
there were three flautists who utilized a technique we
called the “buzz tone.” Basically, they took the flute apart,
and instead of blowing over the hole which is what you
normally do, they buzzed with their lips as if they were
playing a trumpet, they blew into the inside of the flute
and then clicked the keys on the flute and created this
weird ambience that was put through delay. That’s pretty
colorful. The Venom theme was, again, for full brass blaring
away again in a unison melody. The Uncle Ben theme
was for solo piano. Indeed, there was a love theme but
that never made it into the movie. It was for solo cello.
The Aunt May theme, which also didn’t make it into the
movie, was for solo strings. There was some sad MJ stuff
which was also for piano, and that didn’t make it into the
film. There were a few themes I wrote that didn’t make
it in the movie, three, ultimately, that were replaced with
Danny’s themes from the first two movies and those were
the love theme for Peter and MJ, the Aunt May theme
and the sad MJ theme.
How “monstrous” did you want to make Venom’s
music?
Pretty monstrous. It’s a pretty fat theme, its got eight
French horns screaming the line and a choir on it as well.
Its interesting, in the original cue I wrote for when the Venom
body dies, as well as Eddie Brock, I did a big version that
was not used. So what you hear was as big as it was enabled
to get. We decided it was better for the scene if I didn’t have
thematics but more weird ambient music, which is what I
ended up doing. But I did want it big and unfortunately its
biggest moment did not appear in the film.
One sequence where your music really stands
out is where The Sandman rises from the dust to
discover his powers. In a way, would you describe
it as a similar musical approach to your famous
“Resurrection Waltz” in Hellraiser?
Absolutely, they had temped the film not with the “Resurrection
Waltz” but with a cue from Hellbound that was
mysterious and sort of tragic. It was very much like what
I ended up writing for Sandman. That was one of those
moments where Sam had a very clear concept of what he
wanted to do with the music and he felt the cue from Hellbound
perfectly demonstrated that so I used it as my model.
This was a situation where what ends up in the film is
directly influenced by a past film and that was a great idea
on Sam’s part. If I had not heard my own music I probably
would have written something totally different.
For Spider-Man 2, you wrote two very striking
cues – one for the Doc Ock birth sequence, and
one for the train chase. Were you able to revisit
any of those two different kinds of writing in
Spider-Man 3: the large gothic approach and the
intense, ostinato-driven action scoring?
I would have to say, without a shadow of a doubt the
dark gothic sound! The wonderful thing about this movie
is that all these villains are dark, and the film itself goes
into a much darker region than the other ones have, be-cause Spider-Man himself goes down the wrong street for
a while. Yes, the film definitely allowed me to continue
to explore the gothic aspect of film music that I adore so
much. Now, the ostinatos – pertaining to them, sure, any
time there are two people chasing each other you have to
incorporate an ostinato, or you’re gonna put your audience
to sleep. So, all the action music in the film is totally
laiden with ostinatos of all shapes and sizes. None of the
ones that I used in that train sequence re-appear in this
movie, but the concept remains the same.
What can you tell me about the temp track on Spider-
Man 3, reflecting the fact that you were hired
on the previous film to write something very close
to what was on the temp track there – Hellbound?
Right... this time around, considering all the music that
had to be written, there were very few scenes where Sam
was so in love with the temp that he really pushed me in
duplicating, except of course those areas where Danny’s
music appeared. That was different. There I was either
literally transferring some of that music into my score, or
adapting it somehow. But outside of those moments, no, I
never had to pay that close attention to what was going on
in the temp. This time around, the majority of it was culled
from a variety of sources, including my own work but not
exclusively my own work, nor exclusively Danny’s.
How did you relate to the music Danny Elfman
wrote for the two first films? He usually has a very
motif-driven style.
I tried my best to honor Danny Elfman’s music, to
do justice to his work. It was so critical to the success of
the first two movies – I didn’t want to mock it up. I knew
that when I accepted the job, I would have been making a
tremendous mistake if I hadn’t treated his material withthe same kind of seriousness that I was trying to treat
my own. It was a tough job – of course, had I been given
my way I would have loved to rewritten the entire score,
and not have to worry about utilizing his stuff at all. But
of course that wasn’t gonna happen. I guess, the best I
could have done was to try to figure out a way to come up
with my own material, and hopefully hold on to my voice,
and somehow succesfully wrap myself around his themes,
so there was a seamlessness between my stuff and his
stuff. Yes, indeed his music is pretty motivic, but the main
Spider-Man theme and the Green Goblin theme are very
singable tunes – that’s what I like. Some of my villain material
has longer lines than Danny usually likes to write,
but then again some of my villain themes are more motivic,
just like his are. I would have to say that the Black-
Suited Spider-Man theme is probably the one that is more
complete and longer than any of his themes.
How did you want to balance the film’s action
with its emotion?
With the emotional music, the challenge I had was
whether or not I was supposed to treat those dramatic
moments as if they’re happening between two people that
had real lives and had nothing to do with the fantasy of a
comic book movie. When I saw Peter in tears with Aunt
May I thought to myself, “Well if this scene was in any other
movie, this is how I would score it,” and then no sooner
would I write the cue I would think, “or should I twist it
around to make it more for a comic book movie?” That was
the tough part but ultimately I decided I would keep it
straight. I know Sam was very happy with it; he was glad
that I didn’t make it sound like a comic book movie.
What kind of spin do you think you put on the
traditional “superhero” score here?
In that I come from a horror, thriller, suspense background,
as does Sam, I think at those moments where I
was allowed to “go dark” I may have brought the score to
a new level of darkness for superheroes. I think that my
lust for massive music and ultra high drama may have
contributed some of the heaviest superhero music.
What kind of pressures do you think a film of this
size brings on a composer? How do you deal with it
while keeping your creativity – and sanity – intact?
A lot of pressures, the biggest one being that
this is the third installment in a very successful franchise
and more than anything else the franchise must be maintained.
It was an odd place to be because the composer
who had been successfully attached to the first two movies,
which had done extraordinarily well, was not going to
be involved in this one. I think of the major participants on
the previous two movies, he was the only one to leave and
the music is a major contribution to both of those movies,
and everyone knew it was going to be a major contribution
to the third movie. Now, someone entirely new is coming
in. They’d had a brief experience with me on Spider-Man 2
doing the fixes and that sort of paved the way, but it must
have been nerve-racking for them and I knew it was like,
“Is the kid going to be able to do it? Is it going to be like
Danny’s? Is he going to be disrespectful to Danny’s stuff?
Will he honorably embrace it and do his best to do it justice?”
Of course I was going to do that, there was no way
that I was going to mismanage myself and not treat his
themes the same way I would treat my own. I remember on
the first show and tell I was a nervous wreck. I wasn’t sure
if they were going to like it, but fortunately they did. Sam
fell in love with the Black-Suited Spiderman and Sandman
themes especially. He was great to work with. He made me
feel so much more comfortable. There was a certain point
at which I finally got the thumbs up from him and that
moment certainly made it a lot easier. I didn’t sense that
he had any regrets that Danny wasn’t available so it wasn’t
like I was walking in as a second stringer. Everyone in my
office was a little edgy because they knew that I was a little
edgy, very worried about whether or not I was going to pull
this off. I guess the only way you can keep yourself from
tipping too far into the super anxiety zone is by knowing
you have to get some music written. So you have to shut
that down for the time that you’re writing the music and
the minute the cue is done you can immediately move back
into that place of panic. The whole thing about surviving
in any aspect of movies is maintaining an even keel. Certainly
when Sam was here it was always smooth sailing, I
was always joking with him and relaxed.
A big film like Spider-Man 3 is not only about music
and aesthetic choices: it’s also about politics. What
was that process like, from your point of view?
Yes, no question about it, politics were very much a
part of this project. Fortunately, I didn’t have to worry
about the studio not backing up Sam for the most part.
It was unquestionably his show. I only had to be politically
minded in trying my best in acknowledging everyone
else’s concerns. But at the very end, the big issue
was about my stuff getting replaced at the last minute
with more of Danny’s stuff. And that made perfect sense
because this film was the most expensive movie in the
history of movie making and the solvency of the studio
rested on the success of this movie. The studio decided
that they probably needed to retain more of Danny’s music
from the first two films for continuity’s sake. Quite
frankly, I understood why they had to do it – if I was
the head of a movie studio and I had 300 million dollars
resting on a movie, and I got it in my head that the best
way to help get the money back was to change the music,
I would change it too! I don’t think anything I did was
wrong, because I know that Sam really loved it.
How did you make sure all of the music stayed
cohesive in the end?
Some of Danny’s principal assistants and arrangers
were brought in to work his themes into the picture. Their
job was trying to figure out a way to have it coordinate successfully
with what I had written. So, say a romantic moment
came up in the middle of an action cue, the arranger
was asked to figure out a way to insert Danny’s music but
at the same time maintain cohesiveness so that it would
sound organic to what I had already written. I really had
nothing to do with it. I wasn’t there at the recording sessions
when that was being accomplished. The first time I
heard it was at the premier. But it had to be done and there
was very little time. Had there been time I would have done
it myself but I was still writing all the finale action music.
Is there any truth in the rumors about you and
Danny having worked together on the score?
Danny and I did not work together on this score, ever. As
a matter of fact, I didn’t even talk to him when I was on the
picture. It just didn’t seem necessary. I know that John Debney
and Danny’s assistant, a woman who is an ex-student
of mine, Deborah Lurie, came in to make some revisions.
What team did you work with on the Spider-Man
3 score? How important is Pete Anthony for you,
for example?
I had an amazing team on Spider-Man 3. If I didn’t
have the team supporting me that I had, I would never
have made it to the finish line, period. Whenever possible,
I try to bring back the same people I’ve always used,
because I adore working with them and they know me
extremely well and have done remarkable work time
after time after time. Of course, Pete Anthony not only
orchestrated the music with his team, but conducted as
well. His input on the scores is vital. Although I try to
be as accurate as I can about what I’m looking for, Pete
and his gang are responsible for face-lifting the cues and
making them sound seamless. It’s like musical plastic
surgery, little nips and tucks that makes it sound pretty.
On the recording end of things, I have Bobby Fernandez,
who has been recording all of my scores since Murder in
the First – and boy, they don’t get any better than him. He
has been around since nearly the beginning of time, working
with such greats as Bernard Herrmann, Miklós Rózsa
on his last score, Jerry Goldsmith, Henry Mancini, Elmer
Bernstein – I feel incredibly lucky to have him onboard.
Thomas Milano, who you’ve worked with for
many years, was the supervising music editor
– how do you work together?
He is the oldest member of my team, he’s been withme the longest. We met going way back to a film called
Rapid Fire, I met Tom through the director of that movie,
Dwight Little. Since that day I’ve used Tom exclusively,
whenever possible. He’s outstanding, knows me backwards
and forewards, and of course he does everything a
music editor is supposed to, better than anyone else. But
in addition, he knows exactly when I need to have him
come in and give me some suggestions, he doesn’t push
his opinion on me. He’s a perfect right hand man
You’ve joined the pantheon of composers like Jerry
Goldsmith and Bernard Hermann, who’ve had their
close-up in a film they’ve scored. Could you talk
about shooting your role as a rehearsal pianist? Did
knowing that you’d be in the film make you even
more determined to deliver the best score possible?
I was stunned when I got the call from Sam to do a
little acting. I knew that he had used Danny Elfman in
a cameo in The Gift playing a fiddle out in a swamp, so
the concept when it came up wasn’t completely out of left
field. I knew he liked to include real musicians playing
real musical parts that he might need in the picture. I
was honored, thrilled, scared shitless because I’d never
done this before and my greatest fear was if I flunked
as an actor was it going to reflect on his opinion of me
as a composer? There are three scenes of me in the film,
two you’d never know, the first being when MJ walks
down the staircase for her debut, you can see the back
of my head as I’m in the pit conducting. Then shortly
thereafter, my second appearance is backstage after the
opening performance of the musical when Peter comes
back to congratulate MJ I’m directly behind them talking
with some people. But the most prominent scene is
the one in which she comes the following day to find out
she’s been replaced. Now, I’m actually not the rehearsal
pianist there, that was someone else, I’m the one standing.
All in all it was great to be on set, the scenes were
shot at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Los Angeles
and just to be able to walk around in that theater for a
couple of days was a complete rush. Sam’s directions to
be were minimal, he just said “Okay, in your close up look
uncomfortable. She’s just shown up and everyone in the
room knows she’s been fired. How is she going to make it
through this gracefully?” So those were my instructions,
it was like one take as far as I can remember. Probably in
a subconscious way it made me want to deliver. Whether
I was in it or not I knew I needed to deliver the best score
possible. I guess being in the film made me feel like I was
really a team player and therefore had to come through
with that much more pizzazz on the score.
Are you signed up for more Spider-Man pictures
after this? Do you think that the film’s likely megasuccess
will set you up for more superhero scores
– especially any future Ghost Rider sequels?
I have not signed up for any more Spider-Man pictures
after this, however if they make a fourth one, which
I’m assuming they will, I’d be thrilled to score it. The
question is if they bring another director in, should Sam
Raimi not direct it, would another director want to have
me on board or would he want to bring in his own guy,
which is normally what happens. But that aside I would
be delighted to do another Spider-Man movie, I would be
in heaven. This films’ success hopefully will open up the
door and allow me to continue to do superhero movies. I
know the feeling is that I succeeded on both Spider-Man
and Ghost Rider and, like I said, maybe this will be a
superhero period for me. I would be so thrilled to continue
to do this genre of films. I don’t know if they’re doing
another Ghost Rider, I suspect that they might want
to and I would be dying to do another Ghost Rider. I feel
insanely blessed that I was able to do both of these movies
and I want to continue to do more of them, and if they
knock on the door I’ll go running back.
[ 本帖最後由 hand神 於 2007-5-23 14:57 編輯 ] 嘩............D英文長到.......其實你地D英文咁叻, 我好懷疑點解你地搵唔到窯字樓工!!!:L 寫字樓狗眼看人低;P ;P 返工D英文都唔同既, 拎到入去都用唔著.
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