Dit is een fragment uit de Making Of van Kingdom of Heaven, waarin Tony Scott en Harry Gregson-Williams bespreken hoe muziek en editing in de laatste fase van het filmmaken op elkaar aansluiten.
Tony Scott
Zelfkritisch
Het was heel verrassend om te lezen hoe Harry Gregson-Williams tegen zijn score voor Spy Game aankijkt. In dit interview spreekt hij open en vrij over zijn twijfels bij het resultaat.
I feel very fortunate to have done the film, but I still worry a lot about it. Tony is certainly one of a kind. I didn’t really feel the force of it on Enemy of the State, since there were two of us composing, and we came in pretty late. I think I was a pretty poor substitute for “the Z“, and I think Tony felt a bit let down. And since that time, Hans has been with Tony’s brother, Ridley. So I was fortunate on Spy Game – I don’t think the producers were that keen on me at first, but Tony went out on a limb for me – I didn’t do a demo or anything.
Zo erg zelfs dat hij zich bij de premiere van de film ongemakkelijk voelde.
Sitting at the premiere the other night I found it almost unbearable because there’s so much music, and in your face. I knew it was going to be that way – I was at the dub so none of it surprised me. […] I have to shoulder some of that blame myself, I did spot the movie with Tony – but he’s so very clear about the amount of music. To be honest, his visuals do lend themselves to a lot of underscore. Frequently the old equation that “if a movie needs a lot of music, it’s probably lacking somewhere” is a truism – but I didn’t feel that on Spy Game. It’s just that there were few places where music wouldn’t have helped. I think I’ve learned a lot from that. If we did it all again, I would probably try to be more assertive – and take a “less is more” approach.
Ik heb het wel een beetje met hem te doen.
Harry Gregson-Williams praat over The Equalizer 2
Harry Gregson-Williams over zijn werk voor de film The Equalizer 2:
What attracted you to both films [The Meg and The Equalizer 2]?
The Equalizer, I did the original with Antoine Fuqua and he only had to ask, I did’t think twice about it. The thing is, we have a bit of a relationship; many years ago, it might be 1997 or something when I forst come to America and I was working under Hans Zimmer at his laboratory [Media Ventures, now Remote Control Productions]. I think it was the first action film I was asked to do aside from working for Hans. I was kind of surprised to get a call, I had not met Antoine Fuqua before. I didn’t know his music videos because he hadn’t a film until that point, nor had I scored an action movie. So we did this movie called The Replacement Killers and we had a good time on it in both our first films, so perhaps it wasn’t our best work yet, hopefully there was somewhere to move. And then all these years went past, a decade and a half has gone by, and we kind of circled back to each other and I was really surprised and pleased that he called me on the Equalizer, the original film more than 5 years ago. So it was a natural thing to want to devlop the themes and carry on the Denzel [Washington] story.
I think I’ve done a lot of films with Denzel. You know, as a film composer you spend a lot of time in a darkened room looking at the pictures in front of you trying to find inspiration and I never get bored of watching Denzel. I can’t think of another Hollywood star that just convinces me right out of the gate. I never sit there thinking: really? really? Never, no. I’ve done several films with him, a lot with Tony Scott actually. So it was really great that since Tony’s passing that I managed to hook up with a director who also loves working Denzel Washington. […]
Dit is een transcriptie van een fragment uit een interview door ‘Unger the Radar’ met Harry Gregson-Williams in de zomer van 2018.
Hier hoor je het volledige interview.