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Hollywood's Soundtrack School Opens Doors to Young Composers; Contrasting Styles of Two Film Composers; Elmer Bernstein Celebrates 50 Years in the Movie Business

Aired August 19, 2001 - 00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BROOKE ALEXANDER, HOST: Hi, I'm Brooke Alexander, with WORLDBEAT. And this week we are beating a path through the world of movie music. So, grab a beverage, a bucket of popcorn and take your seats for these coming attractions.

Keeping score: An exclusive peak behind the doors of Hollywood's soundtrack school.

Planet Hollywood, the contrasting styles of Danny Elfman and Ennio Morricone.

And the Magnificent Elmer, Hollywood's longest serving movie maestro.

John Williams' "Star Wars" music, or Francis Lai's theme from "Love Story" may linger long after a movie's last outing at a cinema, but other successful scores enhance a film, by creating a mood without you even realizing they are there.

Well, there is no set formula for writing a winning movie score, but as Joanne Suh discovers in Hollywood, it is a craft with worldwide appeal.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOANNE SUH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Hollywood attracts young actors, directors and musicians from all across the globe in hope of finding a career in the movie business. A prestigious program run by ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, teaches students the musical and financial side of the business.

WORLDBEAT was invited behind the scenes, as students from as far afield as Japan, Italy, Canada, Israel and Australia set out to score success in Hollywood.

ROB DUNCAN, FILM COMPOSER: I started out writing pieces without a definite goal of being a film composer, and then somewhere I think grade 11 or 12, somebody said maybe you should think about writing for movies, because your music is very evocative of scenery and images. And then I started looking and thought, yeah, I'd love to do this. PAOLA PRESTINI, FILM COMPOSER: This is my first time scoring. I, you know, have a classical background from Juilliard, and film scoring is definitely -- it's about interpreting in your own way somebody's finished product, somebody's dream. You know, someone who is the director, who has spent all their time envisioning this, and you come in and you have to, you know, add some kind of profound, you know, musical meaning.

NANCY KNUTSEN, ASCAP FILM SCORING WORKSHOP: To get to the cream of the crop, I think there is a need to see who is out there.

SUH (voice-over): And students are put to the test. They're each assigned a short movie clip, stripped of its original score, and must come up with their own musical interpretation.

PRESTINI: They gave us a reel, without music. And I had never noticed how if you did take music out of a movie, there -- it feels like a huge silence.

SUH: At the end of a month-long workshop, students will get a one-of-a-kind opportunity, the chance to conduct one of Hollywood's finest orchestra, and hear their pieces performed by the best in the business.

KNUTSEN: And if they've been present-day major films, you know we have Morricone from Italy, and we have Gabriel Yared from France, and people from England, David Hirschfelder from Australia. So, it's with keeping with that trend. That yes, they are, quote/unquote, American films, but the talents come from all walks of life and all countries.

SUH: On this day, students are taking a field trip to the studio of Hollywood composer John Debney, who has written music for more than 50 films.

JOHN DEBNEY, HOLLYWOOD COMPOSER: There was some talk at that moment that maybe the score could have a classical feeling, but with some hip-hop loops underneath.

You never know what it is that a director is going to like, and it may not be your favorite, certainly. But as it turns out, this was my favorite theme.

I don't know how many composers there are out there, like myself, that are lucky enough to be working somewhat consistently. But I don't think there is a great number of us, and I wish there were more. I wish there were more opportunities.

ROBERT KRAFT, PRESIDENT, FOX MUSIC: It's the fabulous Newman score in staging that Alfred Newman, who is the dean of film scoring, and was the first head of music at Fox, my predecessor. And we donate the Fox stage to the program.

GILAD BEN-AMRAM, FILM COMPOSER: I'm amazed, and I'm really amazed about all the work that they ask of them is doing, and letting us feel really like kings and getting a taste of the real world, how it could be when you are really successful, and how it should be.

PRESTINI: Hi, my name is Paola Prestini, and we're doing five and one B (ph), "My Dog Skip" -- one, two, three.

This has been the most amazing experience. I didn't want to get off the podium.

Maybe trombones and tuba, when you come in in measure 12, really tiny, tiny, tiny and don't even crescendo to measure 14, because there's a solo cello right there.

I tell you, I was blown away by the quality of the players. They give a depth to the music immediately. It's almost as if they, you know, they can translate into different styles. And it's really, it was amazing. It was very full, and it was exactly what I wanted.

DUNCAN: I'm really thrilled to have the chance to hear the best players in Las Angeles play my stuff. It really is such a treat.

KNUTSEN: You know, some of them spend a lot of time locked up in studios without windows, and they don't really know all the rest of what they need to know to sell themselves, to market their skills as a composer, to let the world know who they are. So we're just trying to help them connect the dots.

DUNCAN: Hi everybody, my name's Rob Duncan. Really thrilled to be with you guys. You guys sound amazing and I'm really, really thrilled. My piece is one on one, "Anna," the opening credits, the opening credits to "Anna and the King." Should be pretty simple, kept it that way, because I know you guys are just learning.

It's very regal and very sort of proper, and yet romantic. And it is given the same emotions that you'd expect of an epic film.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXANDER: Movie music is big business. There are no less than 15 soundtrack albums on the current Billboard at top 200, including "Moulin Rouge" and "Bridget Jones' Diary."

Well, the soundtrack for this year's hit "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" has pushed bluegrass music onto the mainstream charts, and has sparked a revival in the genre. Now, when we return, we will update WORLDBEAT's album chart and we will meet the men behind these memorable movie scores.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC)

ALEXANDER: Danny Elfman has taste in popular success, with movies scores such as "Batman," "Edward Scissorhands" and current hit, "Planet of the Apes," not to mention the theme for the irreverent cartoon comedy "The Simpsons." Now despite a close friendship with director Tim Burton, Elfman feels that Hollywood has never truly accepted his work. Now in contrast, Italian composer Ennio Morricone has become a Hollywood favorite, with scores for films such as "The Mission" and spaghetti westerns. And this year, he took his tally of Oscar nominations to five, with a score for "Malena." Two contrasting composers, whose work has inspired and influenced millions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANNY ELFMAN, FILM COMPOSER: Finding hard-to-nail down tone is what I tend to be good at. And in Tim's movies, the tone is the key. Finding the tone, and the tone is not a simple thing. I've always prided myself on being able to capture difficult-to-find tones.

It required -- I knew from the very beginning, a very melodic and very percussive, heavy score. It's a very, very muscular score, it's got a lot of weight to it. It's very aggressive score. And it's also the kind that we all love doing. It's fun to write that kind of music, and there is a lot of my own performance in it. There's a huge amount of percussion, and that's the stuff that I like to do, that's the part that is the most fun for me, is percussion, because that's kind of my thing.

I don't know what my trademark is. I mean, I was always hoping early on that my trademark would be versatility.

"Edward Scissorhands" will always be my favorite. It was very simple, pure kind of project. There wasn't a lot of pressure on it. The story was told very well in a simple way, and I was able to work a very simple theme.

I was always so criticized and really almost despised in my own industry. But even if they created a category for best Danny Elfman score, I wouldn't be nominated.

I had the silliness of being upfront from the beginning, and saying that I was self-taught. And in my profession, there is no such thing as self-taught. So people translate self-taught to mean you are a hummer, you hum your melodies to, like, other people, and they do all your work.

Not too strong. Don't want to overwhelm the moment.

I don't shrink away from the fact that I can do crazy, quirky music. But the fact is, I like doing music that has -- that is very anything. So, if it is very quirky, I love it. If it's very dark, I love it. If it's very impressive or dramatic, I love it. If it's very romantic, I love it.

ENNIO MORRICONE, FILM COMPOSER (through translator): Every listener listens differently, and therefore what they hear really depends on their culture, it depends on their spirituality, and on their sense of the culture of music.

The music of "Malena" is small, it's simple music. But within it, there is technique. The public shouldn't be aware of this, they shouldn't be aware of my efforts, of my creative efforts. They are not supposed to suffer what the composer has suffered. They should be peaceful and look and listen. If they were aware of the composer's suffering, than they would be distracted. And that's the problem.

"Mission" is a union of three different elements. It's the story of priests who went to Latin America, to South America to help out the Indians. So what you have, a part of it is the European music, music that came from the Renaissance, music that came from the liturgy of the church. And my problem or goal as a composer was to join in the ethnic music of that culture. And so, what you have thereby is a union of these three elements joined together.

Sometimes I listen to my music after a very long time, and I realize that music hasn't aged. And then I ask myself a question, "why has my music, let's say, stood up to the test of time?" And the reason is that I never followed the trends.

Sometimes on occasion a director can perhaps not understand that risky piece. But I know that I'm taking this risk long before I take the risk. Therefore, I have a second piece prepared on the side, beforehand.

Unless you have enthusiasm, love, fire, passion, you really can't be in this profession. This is part of the profession.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXANDER: With a half-century of movies to his name, like "The Magnificent Seven," "The Great Escape," "The Man With the Golden Arm" and "Ghostbusters," Elmer Bernstein's career is longer and more illustrious than any other movie composer.

Last week, he was the guest conductor at the prestigious Promenade Concert Series at London's Royal Albert Hall. And next week, he celebrates 50 years in the movie business. A landmark award, which earns him a special ASCAP Founder's award from his musical peers. When we return, Serena Yang joins Elmer Bernstein in his Hollywood studio for our "Inside Track."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SERENA YANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Elmer Bernstein has practiced his craft for the past half-century with a highly acclaimed legacy of wide-ranging works. This year marks his 50th anniversary as a film composer, who has written the music for more than 200 major film and television scores. It's a year of celebration for Bernstein, and the party has just begun.

ELMER BERNSTEIN, MOVIE COMPOSER: When I look at a film, when I first look at a film, the first question I ask of the film and of myself is, "why is there going to be music at all? What's the music supposed to be doing?" And I have to be able to answer that question. And that's different things with different films. The first thing was that I was engaged by the head of the music department at Paramount just to write dances for Cecil B. DeMille, "The Ten Commandments." And when Victor Young, who was supposed to do the score, became ill and felt he couldn't do it, I inherited the film, which is an amazing thing for somebody who had never done a film of that size before.

It was in its time the most expensive film ever made. In the hiatus between the end of shooting and final scoring of "The Ten Commandments," I did the score for "Man With the Golden Arm".

I was at my office at Paramount one day, and Cecil DeMille called me down to his -- said I want to talk to you, come down to the office. So I came to the office, and he said to me: "I ran 'Man with the Golden Arm' at my home last night." And I said, "I was afraid you might." He said: "No, no, no, no." He said, "It was really, really very good." He said, "I really liked what you did," he said, "Don't throw anything like that in 'The Ten Commandments.'"

My job, basically, is to create a rail, so to speak, on which the film rides comfortably. In the case of, let's say, of a film like "The Magnificent Seven," the score acts more like a jockey on a horse. In other words, it's a film that was rather slow-moving, and the score gets on top of the film and drives the film.

I think getting typed is very difficult. Now I've fallen into some problems with that in the past. For instance, when I did the first comedy I did in 1977, which was "Animal House," it was so successful that everybody wanted me to do comedies. And for 10 years, I couldn't get out of there. The same thing happened with westerns.

But when I fall into that kind of situation, I will say no, I won't do that anymore.

Music is that art which begins where pictures and words leave off. And because it's not a plastic thing, when you listen to music, you don't say, what does it mean. It's what does it make you feel. And that's why music is such a great adjunct in a film.

There's very, very few filmmakers that can talk to a composer in the composer's language. Also, it is a very, scary process for the filmmaker, because the filmmaker has lived with this film for maybe two years, you know, from the inception. Now the composer comes along at the very end of the process, and it is pretty scary.

And it is a really -- the filmmaker has to have faith -- talk about faith -- the filmmaker has to have faith, because his best chance, or her best chance of getting what they need is basically the composer alone. And that's a very, very hard thing to do.

I, you know, I have heard some composers say that, basically they improvise into the machine, you know. Some of them don't even write notes down. I mean, improvisation is a time-honored art, you know, and I'm not knocking improvisation. But for me, the art of composition has to be also an intellectual process, the kind of process where you take time out, when you think, when you don't rush right to the piano, when you think, what does this scene really need. And that's an intellectual process, you can't do that improvised.

I was in a little village in the middle of Catalonia in Spain about 80 miles north of Barcelona. And it was a bad day, because I was looking for some friends I couldn't find. And I sat down outside this cafe, and they had one of these horses that you put coins in, the children like to ride. And there was this horse next to me, and I'm sitting there not feeling very nice. And all of a sudden, the horse starts to sing "The Magnificent Seven." That's what my life's been about, you know.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXANDER: From Joanne, Serena and me, Brooke Alexander, we have come to the closing scene of this week's edition of WORLDBEAT. But no need to rush for the door. Just stay in your seats, enjoy the music, as we let the credits roll.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERNSTEIN: Hi, I'm Elmer Bernstein, in tune with WORLDBEAT.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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