December 13 happens to be the birthday of renowned (yet head-screatchingly award-less) English film music composer Harry Gregson-Williams. Over the years, the man has aligned himself with adventure and family fantasy films that have become household staples, including all four SHREK movies and the first two CHRONICLES OF NARNIA films. In addition, his action/adventure credits are of almost equal reputation – movies like PHONE BOOTH, MAN ON FIRE, DÉJÀ VU, and X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE.
2010 saw him bob and weave between both worlds, having scored a total of five movies (TWELVE, SHREK FOREVER AFTER, PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME, THE TOWN, and UNSTOPPABLE). And speaking of “unstoppable,” Gregson-Williams is gearing up for a highly anticipated film of 2011 – the Jon Favreau-helmed COWBOYS & ALIENS!
Read on as we celebrate the birthday and discuss the action/fantasy proclivity of Mr. Harry Gregson-Williams.
Movies based on video games are always a risky investment. Did you feel any wariness going into this project?
The financial end of the business doesn’t make any difference to me. That’s not my motivation to do it. Obviously, one wants to do a movie that people are going to see and to do a score that is going to touch people and create something that people are going to have fun with. So, one wants it to be successful from that point of view.
But frankly, if you can’t depend on a Bruckheimer film, I don’t what you can!! It is always a bit of a lottery with these things, but I knew that I would be doing SHREK FOREVER AFTER directly after PRINCE OF PERSIA. It really just felt like a fun project to do, and it took me into areas I probably wouldn’t have gone otherwise. It’s a fun, action/adventure, summertime kind of movie with a bit of Persia thrown in as well!
And you get that feeling right from the first bars of the score. Immediately, I settled into the sensation that the music was exactly what I expected, and I’m in for a great ride.
Oh good. It was made quite clear to me at the beginning of the project that this wasn’t to be viewed as an opportunity to rewrite the manual in scoring techniques for the 21st Century. But that’s not to say that I had to stick to too much convention. There were several parameters that I was given to work within. Obviously, it was a big-budget, Disney, Jerry Bruckheimer, summer action movie, and it needed some Wellington boots. And it needed commitment to at least having some fun with.
Oh, I didn’t mean it in any sort of negative way. I actually loved that it really reminded me of some of Jerry Goldsmith’s later work, like THE MUMMY and THE 13TH WARRIOR, as well as giving a nod to the Golden Age big budget classics that Alex North and Miklos Rózsa became known for.
That was certainly my brief from Bruckheimer at the beginning – to treat it like a big, romantic, sweeping canvas on which to write some tunes. The film that ended up in the theaters isn’t quite the film that I had started writing the score for. The film was considerably longer for quite a long time, and towards the end of the production, it got cut down to a more manageable size. I think it was a good thing to do that for the film, but a lot of the stuff that gave us the sweeping, epic imagery that I felt strongly compelled to write music for ended up being taken out. There were some wonderful shots of the desert for which I wrote many of the main themes.
Well, I think that is something that resonates through all of your scores. You start with a visual and paint a sonic landscape to represent it using other senses.
Well, that is the goal, and each project begins with a new canvas. Each film is different, and the parameters always change. THE TOWN, for example, is absolutely the reverse of Bruckheimer and PRINCE OF PERSIA. It’s not a big-budget film, and it is set in the back-streets of Boston, involving small-time crooks and the things they dealt with. That provided a wonderful canvas for me to work within. But as you can imagine, when PRINCE OF PERSIA came along, it was a project not to be missed. Those sort of things don’t come along very often.
Since you mentioned THE TOWN, another thing that rings through your scores is that, even those set in the “real world,” once your music kicks in, the viewer is no longer a passive spectator looking in; he is immediately transported and reacting to the action.
My music is very much driven by instinct, and since I’ve been lucky enough to come upon opportunity after opportunity, it’s been great to explore what is possible and what I can bring to the table. As composers, we are all different, fortunately, and I still feel like I am on a voyage to explore all possibilities.
And part of that is the hope that one can find the projects that compel one to push one’s self into different directions. It would be a very dull life if one did a romantic comedy three times a year, or whatever…and I think I’ve only ever done one of those – the second BRIDGET JONES. I think it’s all about variety and being brave enough to give it a go!
At the beginning of PRINCE OF PERSIA, before I’d written a note, it was quite intimidating, I have to say. I knew, with a level of certainty, that I would have to compose at least 2 hours of music – and that in itself was a very physical task. It excited me, but it was also very scary looking down the barrel at that.
The other part of it was knowing where these things come from. You know, Bruckheimer had great success with the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN films, and Hans [Zimmer] really got into a groove of what he was doing for that. But I knew that would not be appropriate for me to go the same route, nor would it have been wanted. So I was looking at that canvas and was really hoping that I could get into it and feel it like it was meant to be…but at the beginning it was really quite intimidating.
When dealing with a major Hollywood production like PRINCE OF PERSIA, the composer is almost always obligated to go big with the sound palette. Was there ever a point where you caught yourself going too big?
I think for a movie like PERSIA, you already know there are going to be loud sounds, sound effects, and very rich sonic tracks going on, and I think for the music to be able to bring something to that, I don’t feel it is necessary to beat the viewer over the head the whole time, but there has to be a certain size and scale to one’s plans.
Otherwise, one is going to get obliterated; even with the best-laid plans, things can go wrong very easily. It isn’t a competition to see who can create the biggest sound. But I knew that to drive home a certain scene, I would need a battery of percussion and eight French horns, whereas, in most Beethoven symphonies, he made do with only three or four. Why did I need eight? I dunno. [Laughs] Insecurity?
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