SPOTLIGHT: Douglas Edwards - Musician + Composer
August 23rd, 2009 (12:00 am)
How did you discover music for yourself?
I started taking piano lessons in the 3rd grade soon after we moved back to the United States from Germany. I enjoyed playing music, and I especially liked messing around on the piano for hours at a time. In 4th grade the middle school orchestra blew me away and I started playing the violin soon after. The funny thing was I thought the violin would be much easier than the piano - I remember saying "it only has four strings!"
Seriously, I really enjoyed playing with the school orchestras and liked all kinds of music. I'd practice Bach on the piano, play Nirvana on the guitar, watch a Brooks and Dunn concert, jam out to Simple Minds, and cover Kool and the Gang and Stone Temple Pilot songs in high school. But nothing was more interesting than writing orchestral music, and as cliché as it sounds, I remember thinking that despite what kind of job I'd have in the future, I was going to be writing music for the rest of my life. It's strange to come to such a conclusion as a kid.
What did your musical education consist of?
I had really supportive parents and took a lot of music lessons while growing up. I took about 2 years of classical guitar, 6 years of composition, 9 years of violin, and 15 years of piano. My childhood piano teacher was really good about making her students perform frequently, so we often played for our parents and competed for judges. She was also good at teaching theory to kids, and we would take the annual theory and aural exams at the local university. My violin instructors made us participate in competitions in addition to performing as an orchestra, which really prepares you as a player. Even the stranger shows were fun, from switching off violin to keyboard while playing in the pit orchestras to covering "More than Words" on guitar for a dinner theater.
In college I took all the standard composition courses such as conducting and orchestration, but also classes that weren't part of the degree plan including sightreading, accompanying, woodwinds and brass methods. I also performed with one of the choirs for several years, which was one of many rewarding moments for me- I wouldn't be singing to this day nor love the choir as much as I do had it not been for those experiences. I started learning viola, cello, and percussion on my own soon after graduating in composition. Even though I'm not formally trained on the viola or cello, I do enjoy playing them in studio from time to time.
What was your first composition and when did you write it?
My first composition was written on my piano teacher's clavinova when I was really young. I don't remember when exactly, but I did bookend the piece with the intro and called it "sonic". I used the multi-track function on the clavinova to create the piece, which led to years of me musically goofing off. I guess you could say I never really stopped. I think my teachers were a little overwhelmed with having a kid who was more interested in writing music than practicing it. My high school orchestra conductor was the only string teacher who seemed open to it. She had our large orchestra perform a couple of my pieces my last two years there, which was an incredible experience for a young composer.
When did you first notice film music (in films)? Any particular memories / favorites?
John Williams was one of the first composers that I noticed who wrote for film. My parents like to remind me that I heard the 1977 Star Wars score in the theater six or seven times before being born. I remember listening to the Jurassic Park soundtrack quite a bit as a kid, and one of my favorite things to do was to put some headphones on and turn off the lights. Some of my other favorite pieces of music growing up were the subtle classical pieces that I was performing semi-regularly, such as the serenades for strings by Dvorak and Tchaikovsky, piano music by Chopin and Debussy, and slower string pieces such as "Ase's Death" by Edvard Grieg.
When did you decide to tackle scoring for films and commercials?
Before I graduated from college, a friend asked me to write a piece of music for a play that my university was putting together, and this happened about the same time that I saw a flyer asking for short film score submissions in the practice building. I wrote the music for the play and submitted the demo for the film on the highest quality media I could, a cassette tape! I got both jobs, but the problem was I didn't have recording software, and I didn't own a car. So I recorded the scores on my 16-track synth, saved the sessions on floppy, and dragged that big board 15 minutes across campus while strapped to a dolly. I'd load up the sessions, either play along or mix real time into the film's editing system, and then strap it back on the dolly and drag it to the dorm. Rinse and repeat for the play's performances.
Despite the inconvenience, I really had a good time and it certainly helped having a large number of people around you who were just as passionate about what they were doing. My roommate was a percussionist and the conductor's son for Ray Charles' orchestra, so we got to meet him when they were on tour. Later on I was back in the practice building and saw some flyers for a number of bands, one of which was a group that Norah Jones was in called Laszlo. I knew her name but only because we both took piano lessons in the same department. One day I saw her printing out some similar flyers and I almost gave her a friendly hard time about using the computer lab for personal glory. It would have been hypocritical of me because I was printing out the front cover for my cassette demo.
Short films are a good training ground for composers. What is your favorite short film score and why?
I have several short film score favorites and all for different reasons. I had a rewarding experience meeting the director Aaron Marquette and Kerry Valderrama while working on "Judas: One of Twelve". There was a monologue that ran the length of the film all while the entire piece was building to a climax, so the music had to dramatically support the story without distracting the audience. "Out of the Shadow" by Andrew Bartels is a period piece that deals with racism and a boy's journey in finding morality. The score used both traditional and non-traditional sounds, which is something I continue to strive for depending on the project. This score included a clarinet, piano, string orchestra, and rope noise.
"Scene from Hope Lost" and the experimental film "Switch" by Bruce Guido were also fun scores to work on, as the first one used pitched sounds of running water as a music bed, while the other score was recorded with just two electric guitars. "The Last Turn" by Robert J. Castaldo is a thriller type of film using a high stakes poker game to con people out of their money. The score's rhythm tracks were fun to do because they were recorded by shuffling cards, flipping through cards, and shaking poker chips. "The Scientist" by David Matheny is a film about the creation of an inanimate object, and it was interesting to experiment with vocal breaths, gasps, and the performer's improvised choking sounds along with electronic rhythms and pitched strings throughout the score.
"Date.CON" by Greg Mansur is a comedy that required me to write songs in many different styles, including rock, alternative, blues, funk, and country. "Tuscania" was a drama shot in Italy that needed some accordian based music as well as an opera piece. "Pest Control" by Ezra Schwartz is an animated film about a little boy's discovery of mutant creatures in his home and it was only the second film I ever scored and the first to use real instruments. I always have good memories when I think of that score, maybe because I nearly did it right!
While there is great artistic freedom, the length of the movies become the constraints. Do short films have a denser spotting as opposed to movies of average length?
That's a good question because it seems that most of the short films I've done do require a healthy amount of music. However, the longer a short runs the more likely it won't constantly need music. Depending on the film and the amount of music, silence is just as important if not more important than the score. In the end, it all comes down to many elements including the story and the overall vision for the film. Features give the filmmaker an opportunity to explore more characters and scenarios, while the score for a feature naturally supports this with additional themes and more variations. I find that aspect of composition to be incredibly interesting. That being said, the shorts I've worked on do require a larger percentage of score than the features.
Short Films Vol. 1 contains excerpts from a dozen short films. How did the selection process worked for this compilation?
The selection process for this compilation was rather difficult. I wanted to include scores from all of the shorts that I have worked on, but they obviously needed to be able to fit onto one audio disc. I knew the compilation would include the two Moondance Festival scores, "Out of the Shadow" and "The Scientist", but I didn't want to include any music from short films that have distribution, such as "Judas: One of Twelve" and "Mary's Promise". It eventually became a matter of picking what would work best with what I already knew was going to be used. Some of the selections are compilations of its corresponding film, sometimes it's a cue or two, and at least one of them runs the full length of the film. I basically chose aspects of each score that I enjoyed listening to while keeping it under 79 minutes. I'm all about giving the listener the most music possible on a compilation!
Vol. 1 indicates this is not the end. Any particular films that will definitely make an appearance on a Vol. 2 release?
I do plan on including a couple of film scores that didn't make an appearance on the first disc, however there isn't a second compilation planned at this time. I also have been writing trailer music for several projects recently, including Kerry Valderrama's "Memories of a Hundred", Stone Silent Production's "Buried Beneath", and music for the 2009 Asian Film Festival of Dallas. I'd love to compile all those together one of these days and just release a trailer disc, but in the mean time more feature film scores will be released before any more compilations are, including "Night Crawlers" and "My Step-Dad's a Freakin Vampire".
"And All Other Things" is one of your first feature length works. What are your memories of the project?
"And All Other Things" was personally a groundbreaking score for me. This was the first time I started experimenting with layering my own Violin performances with keyboard strings. "Pest Control" was a score prior to this that had real instruments (an electric 5-string Violin and French Horn), but unlike that score, AAOT used layers in conjunction with string orchestra pads. It was shocking to me how much life and emotion was pulled into the score with real instruments, and even though the score sounds outdated to me now, there was a black and white difference between that and my previous work. Ever since then, I always try to get as many real instruments into an orchestral score as possible. Of course, the music's quality isn't always that important to the budget, but I try in a reasonable fashion as much as I can. This score was also the first time I experimented with extreme pitch manipulation on stringed instruments. Some of the darker Viola sounds are actually pitched Violins, and I used this technique again to make the Violas sound like dark Cellos on "The Scientist".
Apart from the original score, you wrote the additional music for the DVD (menu, etc.). How did this work out?
Most of the additional music for "And All Other Things" was either rock or techno music that needed to be used as source material (party music, car radio, etc). One of the more important additional pieces was a dark techno track that was used for a dramatic scene later in the film. The menu music was actually one of the unused demo pieces, and Bruce said he liked it so much that he used it for the DVD Menu. That piece of music is the only score that doesn't use any thematic material from the film itself.
You've written the music for Pablo Veliz's "Double Dagger" about a ex-thief who decides to rob his own business to save himself from debts. Heist movies have an established sound (like David Holmes' Ocean series) - how did you settle on this combination of orchestra and electronics that you used?
David Holmes obviously does fantastic work, including the Ocean series that you mentioned. Pablo and I seem to talk more about the Bourne series and "The Italian Job" if I recall correctly. Even though "Double Dagger" shares elements with the Ocean series, Pablo brought in his own tragic flair to the genre. As fun as the film can be, the end plays out in a way that essentially makes the audience question the main character's intentions. The film seemed to need that darker, more serious tone to help support the betrayal and suspicion that the end eventually climaxes to. I love writing all kinds of music and finding the perfect fit for any particular scene. If we felt that lighter grooves and beats helped the film more, we certainly would of done that. However, I feel that audience members have become more perceptive and critical of the specifics, including music that doesn't seem to fit the story. Overacting and plot holes can take people out of the moment just as easily as the wrong type of music, so I created some darker electronics to bed the orchestra to help draw the audience in and support the distrust these characters are feeling.
Probability (Techno) seems like a strange bonus track at the end of the album. What was this written for?
Probability is a great example of how I love creating any kind of music for what the scene needs. This was an original techno song that was written for a club scene in "Double Dagger". Pablo had showed me an early cut of the scene, and I watched the crowd dance to silence followed by some dialogue. I found the tempo that the extras were dancing to and wrote the song using that beat per minute. I laid some simple vocals down too and showed Pablo what I was working on. He said he liked it so much that he decided to re-shoot the club scenes so that everyone could be dancing to the song! I've played a lot of shows as a hired musician, but I haven't performed one of my songs live. I have to admit that I wish I could've been on set that day!
"The Boys of Ghost Town" is your second feature with Pablo, which is more thematic than "Double Dagger". How do you come up with the character themes and how influential is the director at this stage?
All the directors that I've worked with are great to work for because they lead by example and their influence is strongly reflected in the work that they do. We then talk about the film using mostly descriptive words, similar to how a director would talk to an actor. I have to say that Pablo went the extra mile for the score to this film, 552.75 extra miles to be exact. He drove Sarah Odom to Dallas from San Antonio so she could record her voice on the score. She sang from about 9pm until 5am in my studio while Pablo slept on the couch, and then he drove her back to San Antonio so she could catch an afternoon flight to Los Angeles. I think Pablo was a lot more influential on this score than I'm giving him credit for!
"Your Eyes" is an original song written for the picture, based on a theme written for the character of Natalie. What are the additional chores with turning an existing theme into a song?
The challenge to writing an original song for a film, amongst other things, is making the theme fit the score, finding the right key and range for any vocalists, and nailing the mood of the scene both musically and lyrically. For me, the hardest part of any score is creating the perfect musical themes for the film. Turning a theme into a dramatic or ambient mood isn't as difficult with they are good to begin with. The hard part is tying the lyrics in with the story and not making it too cheesy. Depending on the scene, I like writing lyrics from the character's perspective, however writing them in a thought out and artistic manner isn't as easy as it sounds. In "The Boys of Ghost Town", the romantic scene involves two people who have known each other their entire lives. One sacrificed their childhood to bring justice for the other, and the subsequent years of being apart made for a dramatic reunion. The irony is that her life depends on his ability to let go of the present. "Innocent goodbyes, I'll give up for your eyes" are two people singing the same words but referencing different parts of their lives within the film. It's the closest I could come to explaining both situations without directly referencing either one, all while trying to find common ground between the audience and the film's characters. Even though the scene could have been scored like any other love scene, I felt that it had to be one of the most gentle yet passionate moments in the film.
Your bio is very brief on "Southern Comforts", which is described as an education production. What was this about?
"Southern Comforts" was an educational soap opera produced by the RTVF department at a local university in the Dallas Metroplex. I met one of the instructors, Greg Mansur, prior to working on the series when I was first getting involved with them. Greg is a really talented and down to earth instructor who I credit for helping me out after my first couple of films. We worked on several shorts together, including "Date.CON" and "Imperfection" before he referred me to Richard Allen for "Southern Comforts". Even though the cast and most of the crew for the soap opera were students, they ran the production on the standard weekly schedule. Due to time constraints along with their shooting schedule, they couldn't give me any episodes before they needed to air, so I ended up writing the music for each episode based off the newest screenplay. I would get a new script every week, meet with a producer, determine where music should go and pretty much guess at how long each moment would last. From there it was all about editing to make it work right if the music needed editing. So far this has been the only feature length production that I wrote all of the music for without seeing a single frame of video. You can imagine my surprise when they aired!
Most of the music on the album is assembled into long suite which range between 10-15 minutes. Why did you decide on this format and why are the bonus tracks shorter?
When writing the music for "Southern Comforts", I would number each cue by the theme's characters and emotion. For instance, there was Corinne's Crazy Theme 01, Jennifer/Brad's Romantic Theme 12, etc. This way if a later scene in an episode had another moment between Jennifer and Brad, I could quickly pull up the thematic material that I had already written, and either stay in the same mood or deviate from there. I ended up with about 20-25 different emotional themes for each main character. When it came time to cut a soundtrack for the production, I wasn't looking forward to having 100 tracks or more listed on iTunes, nor did I want to charge $1 per short track and force people to consider buying the full album. I decided to compile the cues by emotion to make each track longer despite the fact that they would be playing out of sequence and might come off sounding a bit suite-ish. The bonus tracks are shorter because those cues were designed either as stingers or as transitions, so even though there may be just as many or more of them than the longer cues, the sum came off being shorter. I just didn't want to exclude these tracks from the soundtrack, but I also didn't want to break the longer moods of the earlier tracks. This seemed like the best solution and something that I would prefer when purchasing.
"My Step-Dad's A Freakin' Vampire" is a nice horror score with Gothic touches (a choir and an organ). Most directors prefer subtler music for their horrors - how did you pull of this more old-fashioned sound?
This was a fun score to work on. You are right about most horror films. I recently did a horror/thriller where the music was either soft and subtle, or suddenly dissonant and in your face. This film is actually more of a comedy/adventure than a horror film, or as the director, David Matheny, put it to me when we first discussed it... this is a modern day Goonies flick with Vampires. The idea of using grand and epic moments in the music help to add a serious undertone to an already light hearted film, as well as a bigger than life feeling to the extreme situations the anti-hero goes through. David and I also discussed the idea of creating this score using the orchestral sound from the Golden Era of film score, where film scores relied on musicians instead of samples, with the extra challenge of keeping the budget as low as possible. So we hired as many professional players as we could and covered every aspect of a full orchestra without having to rely on samples and VSTs. The only exception was the alesis pipe organs and small sections of a plucked upright piano that was impossible to perform live. As for the overall experience, I had a great time and honestly get really excited when we have budgets to hire good players.
This score features several real orchestra players, who were recorded in different locations at different times. How do you comb the different performances together for the final mix?
The score was recorded in four waves to help manage the budget - the first two days was at Elmwood Studios with a french horn and four woodwind players. The second wave took seven days and was at my studio which included me on all the strings, male choir, and orchestral bells. The third wave was one day in Richardson for the timpani, bass drum, suspended cymbal, gong, and tubular bells. The fourth wave was about a week later and included layering three female vocalists over each other. Luckily I didn't have to do much combing regarding the performances because all the musicians did an excellent job and recorded the music in two or three takes. One of the best experiences was recording at Elmwood with John Congleton because he was very efficient about keeping only the best takes. That really helped me out because I was up for a couple days straight while tracking there, but as always I loved every moment of it.
What instruments are the most important to be played by live players and what parts can be played on computer without any sacrifices?
This is a good question when discussing using real orchestral players versus samplers, and the answer would differ from person to person. I prefer to turn the question around and relate it to actors. What roles are most important to be played by live actors, and what parts can be played on a computer without any sacrifices? Or what scenes can a human direct, and which ones can be sampled from other films? It might sound a bit extreme to hear someone say that, but for me it's an important difference especially when talking about emotion in music. A film's score is the story's heartbeat, and emotion is the key ingredient. But in the end, it all comes down to the film's budget and the entertainment business is hurting just as everyone else is. Orchestral samplers and VSTs are cheap to use, as they have become quite popular due to shrinking music budgets in visual mediums. I usually end up finding a happy blend between samples and real instruments so that the budget can remain relatively low while not entirely sacrificing the emotion from live performers. However, my preference is to keep computers for electronic pads and synths while always using live players on real instruments. There is an unmatched quality between the two. I guess you could compare it to computer graphics. CG can make things look big, different, and cool, but it can't be as emotional or real as a live actor. I believe the same is true with music.
The score to Kerry Valderrama's military mystery "Garrison" will be released soon. What kind of music can we expect on the CD?
The score to "Garrison" includes a healthy dose of dark electronic sounds, percussion, beats, piano, and strings. Since the film is based on the Fort Bragg killings of 2002, it's an intimate murder mystery that ultimately helps to shed light on PTSD within the military. For this reason, the score tiptoes between a smaller intimate string sound and a larger military based one. The soundtrack to "Garrison" will not only include original score, but also tracks from a number of bands and solo artists whose music appear throughout the film as well. This includes Joint Method, My Everest, K Double, Darkest Room, Zeale 32, DJ Yellich, Cyclic, and Adam. We are interested in making the soundtrack a two disc set, but all that is yet to be determined and I'm sure we could condense it down to one disc if necessary. Either way, I know something will be available in the coming months.
In addition to being a composer, you're also a musician who plays on your and other people's scores. Will you ever abandon this to concentrate on writing or does playing music keep you fresh?
Since most of my performance work is word of mouth, it luckily doesn't keep me as busy as scoring does. When I do get the chance to play on other people's albums as a hired gun, I have found it to be quite useful to me both as a performer and a composer. Playing professionally is not an easy job, but I have found that it helps to remind me what it's like to be on the other side of the glass. It can become difficult as a composer to view your music from an outside perspective, sometimes I'll catch myself thinking that I can freehand the dynamics or simply explain this part of the score to a performer and they will understand exactly what I need once they hear the music. However, from a performer's view it is difficult to know exactly what somebody wants because our verbal language doesn't work as well at explaining music like good notation does. So it's nice to be reminded of those kinds of things when I'm playing on an album. As far as time goes it really doesn't take up that much when compared to scoring simply because I don't do it that often.
What are you currently working on?
I just finished writing music for some interesting projects, including a feature film by Javier Barbera called "The Fighter" which should be coming out at Blockbuster and Netflix sometime this month. I also just completed a faith based feature film by Mike Norris called "Maggie's Passage" which features Carlie Irvine on concert harp and vocals. You can go to douglasedward.com and hear some score compilations from those films and several others. Right now I'm working on a short vampire film from Los Angeles, after that I'll be doing a feature comedy from Dallas. Projects in the works include another feature comedy from LA later this year, and a feature drama from Peru in 2010.
What did your musical education consist of?
I had really supportive parents and took a lot of music lessons while growing up. I took about 2 years of classical guitar, 6 years of composition, 9 years of violin, and 15 years of piano. My childhood piano teacher was really good about making her students perform frequently, so we often played for our parents and competed for judges. She was also good at teaching theory to kids, and we would take the annual theory and aural exams at the local university. My violin instructors made us participate in competitions in addition to performing as an orchestra, which really prepares you as a player. Even the stranger shows were fun, from switching off violin to keyboard while playing in the pit orchestras to covering "More than Words" on guitar for a dinner theater.
In college I took all the standard composition courses such as conducting and orchestration, but also classes that weren't part of the degree plan including sightreading, accompanying, woodwinds and brass methods. I also performed with one of the choirs for several years, which was one of many rewarding moments for me- I wouldn't be singing to this day nor love the choir as much as I do had it not been for those experiences. I started learning viola, cello, and percussion on my own soon after graduating in composition. Even though I'm not formally trained on the viola or cello, I do enjoy playing them in studio from time to time.
What was your first composition and when did you write it?
My first composition was written on my piano teacher's clavinova when I was really young. I don't remember when exactly, but I did bookend the piece with the intro and called it "sonic". I used the multi-track function on the clavinova to create the piece, which led to years of me musically goofing off. I guess you could say I never really stopped. I think my teachers were a little overwhelmed with having a kid who was more interested in writing music than practicing it. My high school orchestra conductor was the only string teacher who seemed open to it. She had our large orchestra perform a couple of my pieces my last two years there, which was an incredible experience for a young composer.
When did you first notice film music (in films)? Any particular memories / favorites?
John Williams was one of the first composers that I noticed who wrote for film. My parents like to remind me that I heard the 1977 Star Wars score in the theater six or seven times before being born. I remember listening to the Jurassic Park soundtrack quite a bit as a kid, and one of my favorite things to do was to put some headphones on and turn off the lights. Some of my other favorite pieces of music growing up were the subtle classical pieces that I was performing semi-regularly, such as the serenades for strings by Dvorak and Tchaikovsky, piano music by Chopin and Debussy, and slower string pieces such as "Ase's Death" by Edvard Grieg.
When did you decide to tackle scoring for films and commercials?Before I graduated from college, a friend asked me to write a piece of music for a play that my university was putting together, and this happened about the same time that I saw a flyer asking for short film score submissions in the practice building. I wrote the music for the play and submitted the demo for the film on the highest quality media I could, a cassette tape! I got both jobs, but the problem was I didn't have recording software, and I didn't own a car. So I recorded the scores on my 16-track synth, saved the sessions on floppy, and dragged that big board 15 minutes across campus while strapped to a dolly. I'd load up the sessions, either play along or mix real time into the film's editing system, and then strap it back on the dolly and drag it to the dorm. Rinse and repeat for the play's performances.
Despite the inconvenience, I really had a good time and it certainly helped having a large number of people around you who were just as passionate about what they were doing. My roommate was a percussionist and the conductor's son for Ray Charles' orchestra, so we got to meet him when they were on tour. Later on I was back in the practice building and saw some flyers for a number of bands, one of which was a group that Norah Jones was in called Laszlo. I knew her name but only because we both took piano lessons in the same department. One day I saw her printing out some similar flyers and I almost gave her a friendly hard time about using the computer lab for personal glory. It would have been hypocritical of me because I was printing out the front cover for my cassette demo.
Short films are a good training ground for composers. What is your favorite short film score and why?
I have several short film score favorites and all for different reasons. I had a rewarding experience meeting the director Aaron Marquette and Kerry Valderrama while working on "Judas: One of Twelve". There was a monologue that ran the length of the film all while the entire piece was building to a climax, so the music had to dramatically support the story without distracting the audience. "Out of the Shadow" by Andrew Bartels is a period piece that deals with racism and a boy's journey in finding morality. The score used both traditional and non-traditional sounds, which is something I continue to strive for depending on the project. This score included a clarinet, piano, string orchestra, and rope noise.
"Scene from Hope Lost" and the experimental film "Switch" by Bruce Guido were also fun scores to work on, as the first one used pitched sounds of running water as a music bed, while the other score was recorded with just two electric guitars. "The Last Turn" by Robert J. Castaldo is a thriller type of film using a high stakes poker game to con people out of their money. The score's rhythm tracks were fun to do because they were recorded by shuffling cards, flipping through cards, and shaking poker chips. "The Scientist" by David Matheny is a film about the creation of an inanimate object, and it was interesting to experiment with vocal breaths, gasps, and the performer's improvised choking sounds along with electronic rhythms and pitched strings throughout the score.
"Date.CON" by Greg Mansur is a comedy that required me to write songs in many different styles, including rock, alternative, blues, funk, and country. "Tuscania" was a drama shot in Italy that needed some accordian based music as well as an opera piece. "Pest Control" by Ezra Schwartz is an animated film about a little boy's discovery of mutant creatures in his home and it was only the second film I ever scored and the first to use real instruments. I always have good memories when I think of that score, maybe because I nearly did it right!
While there is great artistic freedom, the length of the movies become the constraints. Do short films have a denser spotting as opposed to movies of average length?
That's a good question because it seems that most of the short films I've done do require a healthy amount of music. However, the longer a short runs the more likely it won't constantly need music. Depending on the film and the amount of music, silence is just as important if not more important than the score. In the end, it all comes down to many elements including the story and the overall vision for the film. Features give the filmmaker an opportunity to explore more characters and scenarios, while the score for a feature naturally supports this with additional themes and more variations. I find that aspect of composition to be incredibly interesting. That being said, the shorts I've worked on do require a larger percentage of score than the features.
Short Films Vol. 1 contains excerpts from a dozen short films. How did the selection process worked for this compilation?
The selection process for this compilation was rather difficult. I wanted to include scores from all of the shorts that I have worked on, but they obviously needed to be able to fit onto one audio disc. I knew the compilation would include the two Moondance Festival scores, "Out of the Shadow" and "The Scientist", but I didn't want to include any music from short films that have distribution, such as "Judas: One of Twelve" and "Mary's Promise". It eventually became a matter of picking what would work best with what I already knew was going to be used. Some of the selections are compilations of its corresponding film, sometimes it's a cue or two, and at least one of them runs the full length of the film. I basically chose aspects of each score that I enjoyed listening to while keeping it under 79 minutes. I'm all about giving the listener the most music possible on a compilation!
Vol. 1 indicates this is not the end. Any particular films that will definitely make an appearance on a Vol. 2 release?I do plan on including a couple of film scores that didn't make an appearance on the first disc, however there isn't a second compilation planned at this time. I also have been writing trailer music for several projects recently, including Kerry Valderrama's "Memories of a Hundred", Stone Silent Production's "Buried Beneath", and music for the 2009 Asian Film Festival of Dallas. I'd love to compile all those together one of these days and just release a trailer disc, but in the mean time more feature film scores will be released before any more compilations are, including "Night Crawlers" and "My Step-Dad's a Freakin Vampire".
"And All Other Things" is one of your first feature length works. What are your memories of the project?
"And All Other Things" was personally a groundbreaking score for me. This was the first time I started experimenting with layering my own Violin performances with keyboard strings. "Pest Control" was a score prior to this that had real instruments (an electric 5-string Violin and French Horn), but unlike that score, AAOT used layers in conjunction with string orchestra pads. It was shocking to me how much life and emotion was pulled into the score with real instruments, and even though the score sounds outdated to me now, there was a black and white difference between that and my previous work. Ever since then, I always try to get as many real instruments into an orchestral score as possible. Of course, the music's quality isn't always that important to the budget, but I try in a reasonable fashion as much as I can. This score was also the first time I experimented with extreme pitch manipulation on stringed instruments. Some of the darker Viola sounds are actually pitched Violins, and I used this technique again to make the Violas sound like dark Cellos on "The Scientist".
Apart from the original score, you wrote the additional music for the DVD (menu, etc.). How did this work out?
Most of the additional music for "And All Other Things" was either rock or techno music that needed to be used as source material (party music, car radio, etc). One of the more important additional pieces was a dark techno track that was used for a dramatic scene later in the film. The menu music was actually one of the unused demo pieces, and Bruce said he liked it so much that he used it for the DVD Menu. That piece of music is the only score that doesn't use any thematic material from the film itself.
You've written the music for Pablo Veliz's "Double Dagger" about a ex-thief who decides to rob his own business to save himself from debts. Heist movies have an established sound (like David Holmes' Ocean series) - how did you settle on this combination of orchestra and electronics that you used?
David Holmes obviously does fantastic work, including the Ocean series that you mentioned. Pablo and I seem to talk more about the Bourne series and "The Italian Job" if I recall correctly. Even though "Double Dagger" shares elements with the Ocean series, Pablo brought in his own tragic flair to the genre. As fun as the film can be, the end plays out in a way that essentially makes the audience question the main character's intentions. The film seemed to need that darker, more serious tone to help support the betrayal and suspicion that the end eventually climaxes to. I love writing all kinds of music and finding the perfect fit for any particular scene. If we felt that lighter grooves and beats helped the film more, we certainly would of done that. However, I feel that audience members have become more perceptive and critical of the specifics, including music that doesn't seem to fit the story. Overacting and plot holes can take people out of the moment just as easily as the wrong type of music, so I created some darker electronics to bed the orchestra to help draw the audience in and support the distrust these characters are feeling.
Probability (Techno) seems like a strange bonus track at the end of the album. What was this written for?
Probability is a great example of how I love creating any kind of music for what the scene needs. This was an original techno song that was written for a club scene in "Double Dagger". Pablo had showed me an early cut of the scene, and I watched the crowd dance to silence followed by some dialogue. I found the tempo that the extras were dancing to and wrote the song using that beat per minute. I laid some simple vocals down too and showed Pablo what I was working on. He said he liked it so much that he decided to re-shoot the club scenes so that everyone could be dancing to the song! I've played a lot of shows as a hired musician, but I haven't performed one of my songs live. I have to admit that I wish I could've been on set that day!
"The Boys of Ghost Town" is your second feature with Pablo, which is more thematic than "Double Dagger". How do you come up with the character themes and how influential is the director at this stage?All the directors that I've worked with are great to work for because they lead by example and their influence is strongly reflected in the work that they do. We then talk about the film using mostly descriptive words, similar to how a director would talk to an actor. I have to say that Pablo went the extra mile for the score to this film, 552.75 extra miles to be exact. He drove Sarah Odom to Dallas from San Antonio so she could record her voice on the score. She sang from about 9pm until 5am in my studio while Pablo slept on the couch, and then he drove her back to San Antonio so she could catch an afternoon flight to Los Angeles. I think Pablo was a lot more influential on this score than I'm giving him credit for!
"Your Eyes" is an original song written for the picture, based on a theme written for the character of Natalie. What are the additional chores with turning an existing theme into a song?
The challenge to writing an original song for a film, amongst other things, is making the theme fit the score, finding the right key and range for any vocalists, and nailing the mood of the scene both musically and lyrically. For me, the hardest part of any score is creating the perfect musical themes for the film. Turning a theme into a dramatic or ambient mood isn't as difficult with they are good to begin with. The hard part is tying the lyrics in with the story and not making it too cheesy. Depending on the scene, I like writing lyrics from the character's perspective, however writing them in a thought out and artistic manner isn't as easy as it sounds. In "The Boys of Ghost Town", the romantic scene involves two people who have known each other their entire lives. One sacrificed their childhood to bring justice for the other, and the subsequent years of being apart made for a dramatic reunion. The irony is that her life depends on his ability to let go of the present. "Innocent goodbyes, I'll give up for your eyes" are two people singing the same words but referencing different parts of their lives within the film. It's the closest I could come to explaining both situations without directly referencing either one, all while trying to find common ground between the audience and the film's characters. Even though the scene could have been scored like any other love scene, I felt that it had to be one of the most gentle yet passionate moments in the film.
Your bio is very brief on "Southern Comforts", which is described as an education production. What was this about?
"Southern Comforts" was an educational soap opera produced by the RTVF department at a local university in the Dallas Metroplex. I met one of the instructors, Greg Mansur, prior to working on the series when I was first getting involved with them. Greg is a really talented and down to earth instructor who I credit for helping me out after my first couple of films. We worked on several shorts together, including "Date.CON" and "Imperfection" before he referred me to Richard Allen for "Southern Comforts". Even though the cast and most of the crew for the soap opera were students, they ran the production on the standard weekly schedule. Due to time constraints along with their shooting schedule, they couldn't give me any episodes before they needed to air, so I ended up writing the music for each episode based off the newest screenplay. I would get a new script every week, meet with a producer, determine where music should go and pretty much guess at how long each moment would last. From there it was all about editing to make it work right if the music needed editing. So far this has been the only feature length production that I wrote all of the music for without seeing a single frame of video. You can imagine my surprise when they aired!
Most of the music on the album is assembled into long suite which range between 10-15 minutes. Why did you decide on this format and why are the bonus tracks shorter?
When writing the music for "Southern Comforts", I would number each cue by the theme's characters and emotion. For instance, there was Corinne's Crazy Theme 01, Jennifer/Brad's Romantic Theme 12, etc. This way if a later scene in an episode had another moment between Jennifer and Brad, I could quickly pull up the thematic material that I had already written, and either stay in the same mood or deviate from there. I ended up with about 20-25 different emotional themes for each main character. When it came time to cut a soundtrack for the production, I wasn't looking forward to having 100 tracks or more listed on iTunes, nor did I want to charge $1 per short track and force people to consider buying the full album. I decided to compile the cues by emotion to make each track longer despite the fact that they would be playing out of sequence and might come off sounding a bit suite-ish. The bonus tracks are shorter because those cues were designed either as stingers or as transitions, so even though there may be just as many or more of them than the longer cues, the sum came off being shorter. I just didn't want to exclude these tracks from the soundtrack, but I also didn't want to break the longer moods of the earlier tracks. This seemed like the best solution and something that I would prefer when purchasing.
"My Step-Dad's A Freakin' Vampire" is a nice horror score with Gothic touches (a choir and an organ). Most directors prefer subtler music for their horrors - how did you pull of this more old-fashioned sound?This was a fun score to work on. You are right about most horror films. I recently did a horror/thriller where the music was either soft and subtle, or suddenly dissonant and in your face. This film is actually more of a comedy/adventure than a horror film, or as the director, David Matheny, put it to me when we first discussed it... this is a modern day Goonies flick with Vampires. The idea of using grand and epic moments in the music help to add a serious undertone to an already light hearted film, as well as a bigger than life feeling to the extreme situations the anti-hero goes through. David and I also discussed the idea of creating this score using the orchestral sound from the Golden Era of film score, where film scores relied on musicians instead of samples, with the extra challenge of keeping the budget as low as possible. So we hired as many professional players as we could and covered every aspect of a full orchestra without having to rely on samples and VSTs. The only exception was the alesis pipe organs and small sections of a plucked upright piano that was impossible to perform live. As for the overall experience, I had a great time and honestly get really excited when we have budgets to hire good players.
This score features several real orchestra players, who were recorded in different locations at different times. How do you comb the different performances together for the final mix?
The score was recorded in four waves to help manage the budget - the first two days was at Elmwood Studios with a french horn and four woodwind players. The second wave took seven days and was at my studio which included me on all the strings, male choir, and orchestral bells. The third wave was one day in Richardson for the timpani, bass drum, suspended cymbal, gong, and tubular bells. The fourth wave was about a week later and included layering three female vocalists over each other. Luckily I didn't have to do much combing regarding the performances because all the musicians did an excellent job and recorded the music in two or three takes. One of the best experiences was recording at Elmwood with John Congleton because he was very efficient about keeping only the best takes. That really helped me out because I was up for a couple days straight while tracking there, but as always I loved every moment of it.
What instruments are the most important to be played by live players and what parts can be played on computer without any sacrifices?
This is a good question when discussing using real orchestral players versus samplers, and the answer would differ from person to person. I prefer to turn the question around and relate it to actors. What roles are most important to be played by live actors, and what parts can be played on a computer without any sacrifices? Or what scenes can a human direct, and which ones can be sampled from other films? It might sound a bit extreme to hear someone say that, but for me it's an important difference especially when talking about emotion in music. A film's score is the story's heartbeat, and emotion is the key ingredient. But in the end, it all comes down to the film's budget and the entertainment business is hurting just as everyone else is. Orchestral samplers and VSTs are cheap to use, as they have become quite popular due to shrinking music budgets in visual mediums. I usually end up finding a happy blend between samples and real instruments so that the budget can remain relatively low while not entirely sacrificing the emotion from live performers. However, my preference is to keep computers for electronic pads and synths while always using live players on real instruments. There is an unmatched quality between the two. I guess you could compare it to computer graphics. CG can make things look big, different, and cool, but it can't be as emotional or real as a live actor. I believe the same is true with music.
The score to Kerry Valderrama's military mystery "Garrison" will be released soon. What kind of music can we expect on the CD?
The score to "Garrison" includes a healthy dose of dark electronic sounds, percussion, beats, piano, and strings. Since the film is based on the Fort Bragg killings of 2002, it's an intimate murder mystery that ultimately helps to shed light on PTSD within the military. For this reason, the score tiptoes between a smaller intimate string sound and a larger military based one. The soundtrack to "Garrison" will not only include original score, but also tracks from a number of bands and solo artists whose music appear throughout the film as well. This includes Joint Method, My Everest, K Double, Darkest Room, Zeale 32, DJ Yellich, Cyclic, and Adam. We are interested in making the soundtrack a two disc set, but all that is yet to be determined and I'm sure we could condense it down to one disc if necessary. Either way, I know something will be available in the coming months.
In addition to being a composer, you're also a musician who plays on your and other people's scores. Will you ever abandon this to concentrate on writing or does playing music keep you fresh?Since most of my performance work is word of mouth, it luckily doesn't keep me as busy as scoring does. When I do get the chance to play on other people's albums as a hired gun, I have found it to be quite useful to me both as a performer and a composer. Playing professionally is not an easy job, but I have found that it helps to remind me what it's like to be on the other side of the glass. It can become difficult as a composer to view your music from an outside perspective, sometimes I'll catch myself thinking that I can freehand the dynamics or simply explain this part of the score to a performer and they will understand exactly what I need once they hear the music. However, from a performer's view it is difficult to know exactly what somebody wants because our verbal language doesn't work as well at explaining music like good notation does. So it's nice to be reminded of those kinds of things when I'm playing on an album. As far as time goes it really doesn't take up that much when compared to scoring simply because I don't do it that often.
What are you currently working on?
I just finished writing music for some interesting projects, including a feature film by Javier Barbera called "The Fighter" which should be coming out at Blockbuster and Netflix sometime this month. I also just completed a faith based feature film by Mike Norris called "Maggie's Passage" which features Carlie Irvine on concert harp and vocals. You can go to douglasedward.com and hear some score compilations from those films and several others. Right now I'm working on a short vampire film from Los Angeles, after that I'll be doing a feature comedy from Dallas. Projects in the works include another feature comedy from LA later this year, and a feature drama from Peru in 2010.
