- In the old days, the picture would have to be "locked", meaning no more changes can be done to the picture and you could start writing the music. Now, because it's digital, a film is basically never locked, pushing the post-production to the very end with a release date coming. Sometimes you get new revisions when you've already written to the last revisions. They'll say, "We haven't changed much". But they've snipped things out and all of the timings get thrown out...There used to be a huge room in the back of the studios that stored the magnetic tapes where the music was recorded. Everything is recorded to Pro Tools now. And, as far as the music editor goes, streamers used to be directly scribed onto magnetic film, but now software does all the math for you.
- The ability to bring authenticity to different genres is the most important thing about being a studio musician...What people don't realize is that it's a unique skillset to able to read the music and bring a degree of performance to what you are reading. It's like a good actor who can do a cold reading from a script and be in that character...You can become adept at very quickly skimming a page. It's like a golfer who can read the course and know by looking at it how the ball is going to fall.
- There's new music all the time - always a new take on something. I like to bring as much life to it as I possibly can. I get a lot of pleasure from that. The thing I tell young people is: be passionate about what you want. The love of what you do will manifest events in your life...Relationships are important in this business. Treasure the people you meet; it's something you can potentially build on later.
- I love the orchestra and I love dotting all the I's, crossing all the t's, and marking all the dynamics to bring some finesse to a composition...There is a psychology to how the page looks to a musician. If there's too much information, it's restricting. If there's too little information, they may not care. I feel like I bring a level of care that makes the musician interested in playing the music.
- We still use microphones we used in the 1950s and 1960s - great vintage, classic mics. And we are still recording live orchestras, and that's fantastic! You cannot take away the magic of all those human beings with beating hearts playing in a room together.. It's unquantifiable. Instruments resonate; sample sounds don't move through the air in the same way. When people walk onto a scoring stage for the first time and listen to a cue we play, the look on their faces makes my heart sing.
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