“To expand and do things that I didn't think I could do – that's the best feeling in the world.”

How does composing music for a particular film begin? Does the director contact you or do you audition?

Sometimes, yes. Usually, once the film is shot, if the director doesn’t already have someone in mind, they'll start assembling the footage and might start putting music in from other films. They’ll say, this is working quite well, who composed this? Often it happens that music from your other films will get the attention of the next movie, often they'll go to agents. Composers have agents and they'll say: we need somebody who can do this. What about this person? Let's hear some music. You send over some music and maybe they'll try it in the movie,they'll cut it in and see if it works. 

What are the crucial parameters for you to consider when you decide whether or not to take a job? 

I've done so many different things, nearly every style or genre. I don't do horror movies. I'd leave that to Chris Young. He’s here now in Prague as well. I want to use my skills to help tell stories that are interesting, be it comedy, animation, drama, tragedy, or experimental. If the music can help open up new avenues into the story, that's the most interesting thing to me. Or if it’s a challenge, something I haven't done before. I've always made the decision based on that. And if the director is someone who's conceptual and thoughtful. I only learn from them. I want to expand and do interesting work and do things that I didn't think I could do. That's the most fun thing when you're scared. You learn how to do it, and then at the end, you think, “I never thought I could do that.” That's the best feeling in the world. 

How does composing music for a film differ from composing music for ballet or a dance company?

I've been writing music since I was pretty young. I wanted to be a pianist, but when I was fourteen, I went through a window and cut my hand. I wasn't able to perform anymore, so I started writing music. It was something that I found really rewarding. Ever since I was little, I wanted to be a composer. But to me the thing that really anchors me to writing is the story. I think I was born to be a film composer. It's the way that I'm made, my brain, my feelings. It comes to life when I have a story. I just wrote a concert piece, but I had to make a story. So for me there's a story behind it and probably no one will ever know what it is, but that's the only way I can do this. It's telling a story. 

What are the stages of your work? 

Some films are thematic, some are environmental or atmospheric. If you're writing the score for a thematic film, you'll watch the film with the director, talk about the story, the characters and then you might start to think, okay, I need a theme for this, a “home” for this concept. It can be a character or a concept or an idea. You kind of map out where these themes are going to go. Now you know that the theme has to work in this scene, this scene, and this scene in different ways. It can be very simple here, and here it gets more complicated; it has an arc, and there's a development. You start sketching to find that thing that‘s so mysterious. After all these years I’ve no idea how that works or where it comes from.

Where does the music come from?

I have no idea. It’s the most frightening, mysterious, and important part of the process, but I try not to think about it because I have to just let it come through me. 

You feel the music is coming through you? 

The good music is. The bad music comes from me. You don't even recognize the best pieces as your own. Honestly, I feel no ownership for the best work I've done.

And it’s scary?

Yes. It's kind of mysterious. It's like any natural process, like a flower growing and producing a bud, then the petals open. It's magic. It's best to just experience it and not try to figure out how it works. You can explain, for example, how the nutrients come in and then the sunlight. You can think about all those things, but when you're alone in a room trying to write that theme, you have to bypass your brain. Your brain is not your friend at that moment.

Do you have a technique that you use?

You have to lose yourself. You have to forget, almost erase yourself.

Do you have a routine when you go to your room to compose?

Procrastinate. I read. This concert piece that I did is about Mother Teresa. I read three books about her. I read all her letters, and in a way, it's like I'm lying on the couch and reading, and you think: oh, you're being lazy. But actually it’s like filling up the well. It's best not to think about it – you just pour it in, and then suddenly, you just feel it. It's more of a feeling – I don't hear the music so much as I know how I want the music to make me feel. I know for this scene, this scene, and this scene what the feeling is. That's something I think I'm good at. So now I have to find the music that makes me feel like that.

Do you go to a piano or do you write?

I've done it both ways. Sometimes I'll take this instrument or that instrument, I start the rhythm. It's a matter of finding something that makes you feel like the emotion that the story needs.

How many versions there can be before you hand the work over and you’re done?

So many. It's embarrassing how hard I have to work. It's ridiculous how long it takes. It's a simple formula: the longer I work, the better it is. I wish it wasn't like that. There’s no shortcut. 

How long can it be? It depends on what stage you come in at, right?

Exactly. It can be as short as three weeks. Sometimes composers get fired and I've been fired. Then they bring me in, and I have three weeks so that's short. For an animated film sometimes I have a year because the film is almost built as an audio play first. They do the voices, then they animate to the voices. So, I start watching a film that's just a sketch of characters and I can hear the voices, and nothing moves. It’s like a radio play. When the characters start moving, the story generally doesn't change. It's all in place and the timing doesn't change, so I can start writing for a year on an animated film. 

Do you work on documentaries as well?

I have. I love watching them, but I don't like scoring them. I don’t know why. I haven’t really enjoyed one. But maybe someday. 

Where do you get your inspiration? 

I have loved music ever since I was little, but I wasn't very interested in film music. I didn't like it, actually. I went to the University of Toronto, and I started working with a theater there. One of the directors became a film director and said, I'm making a film. It was complete accident. I don't have any heroes with film music. The last time I was in Prague, I went to the theatre (ed: the Estates Theatre) where Don Giovanni was conducted by Mozart. That was very meaningful. I have heroes like the standard classical composers. 

Who is your favorite director to work with, and why?

The very first director I worked with, whom I met in college in theater, is Atom Egoyan. We just did a film last year, so we’ve been working together for 35 years now. I learned everything from him. He's a very thoughtful and conceptual director, a very deep-thinking person whose stories are very complex and sophisticated. There's no one better. Then I was lucky enough to work with directors who are cut from the same cloth, like Ang Lee and Bennett Miller. Today I’m  conducting the music for Moneyball, which I did with Bennett. 

Can you share some advice for composers who aspire to compose a movie score? 

The thing that I tell young composers is, you can look up to other people and learn from them but don't try to be them. You really have to be true to yourself. I feel audiences can tell when something is authentic and comes truly from the source as opposed to posing or pretending or imitating someone else. Although in this business, you're often asked to imitate this or imitate that, but you have to still do it from the light of who you are. To me, the thing that's the most important is to find out who you are inside. The story is refracted through you and whatever makes you unique – those are not weaknesses – those are strengths, those are the things that people want. That's what we crave in art: a point of view. The things that you’ve learned, the challenges, the pain, all those things. That’s what I want to know. That’s the thing that makes you unique. I don’t want generic, something that's have all the reality squeezed out of it. But it's hard when you're a student because the schools basically do that, try and make you generic. But it's fine. They're teaching you skills, and they're teaching you to work with other people, but at the end of the day, you still have to be representative of who you are inside. 

This is your second year at the Composers Summit in Prague, isn't it? 

It is, yes. I love it here. It's the best place to bond with friends. Only other composers know what you’re going through. There's a level of understanding that you can't get from anyone else. We bond a lot and it's really fun to be here together as a group and have younger people here and be able to share what we've learned. Of course, it's a new world every day. The way I built my career is ancient history now. But you can learn lessons for applying that to how things are now. We love it, the summit is fantastic, and the hall (ed: the Smetana Hall in the Municipal House) where we do the concert is incredible, so it’s a pleasure to be here.