![]() ![]() “I never like to conduct, quite honestly, because you have to be a bit of a dictator and it’s exhausting,” Howard said. This fall he will be embarking on his first-ever live concert tour, performing selections from his compositions across Europe, and he’s nervous about stepping onto the conductor’s podium. Like many actors and directors, Howard prefers to alternate the big moneymakers with smaller “palette-cleansers.” He cited his score for Edward Zwick’s little-seen Bobby Fischer biopic “Pawn Sacrifice” as one he is particularly proud of. ![]() “I think that is not necessarily what I would like to be doing all the time.” “I’m compelled to write more big, epic action music than I might particularly like to, because that’s the task,” he said. Those priorities affect the kind of work composers like Howard find themselves doing. Howard’s creative struggles scoring the ninth film in a still-expanding cinematic universe are telling of how industry veterans are dealing with a Hollywood increasingly focused on tentpole franchises and familiar properties. His first, somber go at the theme “sounded like a funeral march,” he said, and his second, jauntier attempt “sounded like a circus.” But, he noted, he’s used to frequently having to rewrite his work: “I’m very good at hitting Command + A + Delete.”įinally, keeping in mind director David Yates’s suggestion that the music feel “like we’re being invited into a grand adventure,” he hit upon the winning bars: an eleven-note string phrase that alternates between three tones with almost magical force. He played his different opening demos for the crowd on the piano. The opening transition to Howard’s original music takes up only 35 seconds of screen time, but Howard joked that it was “the longest 35 seconds of my life.” “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” At a July 1 Master Class session at the festival, Howard told a capacity crowd that he knew Warner Brothers would insist on opening the film with the first few bars of “Hedwig’s Theme,” and that if he couldn’t figure out the transition into a standout opener of his own, they might have elected to use a lot more of it. That film presented a particular challenge for Howard, because he was determined to make his score stand out from the iconic John Williams themes that have dominated the “Harry Potter” film series since Williams composed the first three entries. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |