Onlinemagazin für Film und Filmmusik

Hello Mr. Lockington, thank you for this interview. Are your afraid of being compared to Bernard Herrmann?

Of course. Bernard Herrmann was a genius. Different people have asked me, were there similarities in our scores for „Journey To The Center Of The Earth“ and if I even listened to his music. I saw the movie a number of years ago, but I’ve not listened to the score in probably 15 years. When I worked on my score I made a conscious effort not to listen to Herrmanns music. He was a brilliant composer and a pioneer of a particular style of film scoring however the film I had to compose music for was a completely different from his film. I concentrated on what I thought was best for mine.

Which style did you want to create for your score?

The movie is very much like the old-fashioned adventure movies I grew up with. It has its scary moments, but it really is an adventure film. The director Eric Brevig gave me a lot of direction on how he wanted the score to work within the film. It’s meant to be good adventure, but also to have a kind of retro feel in the thematic approach. I knew very early on, that this was going to be an orchestral score with choir. It’s a little bit more traditional in how the themes work. So I basically worked from there and tried to modernize it with elements within that, using some japanese drums and also using some very interesting analog synths.

“Journey" features only a small number of characters. Was this a problem for thematic approach?

It actually wasn’t. We wanted the themes to represent more than the characters. We have a journey theme, which developes throughout the film and works in a lot of adventures scenes as well as a main theme for the whole film. This theme plays mostly in adventure situations the characters where the characters are in control.  The second theme is a theme of peril for situations the characters got into, which they have no control over. They were suddenly falling, they were chased by dinosaurs – in the moments they could take control over these situations the journey theme takes over. So the majority of the film is actually a battle between these two themes. The third theme is less significant, it plays in specific scenes and refers i.e. To the loss of Sean’s father and brother. The theme also developes throughout the film as Trevor and Sean develope a relationship and become family again.

What was your motivation to include the japanese drumming ensemble?

You know, for every film I work on I’m looking for a special musical angle. For „Journey To The Center Of The Earth“ the question really is: Where is the cultural link between the plot and the japanese drums? There actually isn’t any, we don’t know what the music sounds like at the center of the earth. The only link that made such a musical decision possible was the Iceland approach, where the film takes place in the beginning. I did some research on icelandic music, but after playing around with different ideas, came to the conclusion that the film didn’t offer a strong enough link to justify the use of this connection. The island is used as the port to the center of the earth, but the characters never really interacted with the surrounding or the culture. The one character that is icelandic is the least important of the three main characters. It really didn’t feel appropriate.
So I concentrated more on what I thought would be the sound of the images of below the ground I saw in the film. I saw big jungles and forests, big fossilized mushrooms and so on and I was reminded of the traditional japanese drums, taiko drums. I had worked with Kiyoshi Nagata before and I was drawn to the idea to use his big drums, old hollowed out logs with skins as the very low organic rumble, that represents the sound of the center of the earth. So they were very much used in a sonic way, I didn’t mean to follow any musical structures of traditional japanese drumming. The sound was a perfect addition to the sound at the low end of the orchestra.

How much freedom did you have? Has there been temp tracks or producers favorites?

Yes, as always there is temp track, but we never really got it right. They tried so many different things and that was fortunate for me, because I could see was they tried and what didn’t work. Because they hadn’t really found what was working yet, I had the freedom to play with my ideas and start sending things to Eric, the director. Very quickly we forgot the temp track and worked from the sketches I was writing.

Before “Journey” you composed for small features or assisted other composers in the orchestration and so on. How did you get the assignment for your first major motion picture?

You know, it’s so hard to say where the small films end and the big films start. It is such a gradual rise in the size and the scope of the projects. One of the first films I did was a film for HBO in 1999, called „Xchange“. That was really on of the first bigger-budget features I was working on. They were looking for a unique approach for what music could sound like in the future, because it was a science fiction set in the future. So I put together a demo, that was basically a melange of many different cultural elements. I’ve recorded a Haitian woman who was in her seventies and was singing a traditional song, I had an oud playing with it and so on. I just basically envisioned that the future would be much more of a cultural melting pot than it is today. They really responded well to that and it became one of my first big scores.

You worked alongside the Danna brothers for some years. How much did they help you to get things moving in Hollywood?

Both of them are so incredibly talented. I learned so much working with them. It gave me the opportunity to be involved in the film scoring process from the theme writing stage and research stage right up till the scoring and the mix. So it also allowed me to experience first hand what the process of film scoring is like – not just the actual process of writing music, but also the process of dealing with directors and producers. So I learned a tremendous amount, I also was fortunate that Mychael Danna and I co-composed a few projects. He helped me to get screen credits and to get started. But I have to say, more than anything it prepared me for the business. They gave me a chance to participate in the business.

How much did the collaborations influence your personal style?

It influenced me for sure. I worked primarily with Mychael Danna for five or six years. When I came to work with Mychael, the majority of my background was in orchestral music and also more independent, folk-oriented pop music. Mychael really opened my eyes to the music of the world. He was one of the first composers to actually bring instruments from all different cultures and regions into Hollywood film scores. So I learned a tremendous amount about different instruments, part of the job working for him was to do research. I went through libraries and listened to old recordings and put together research on different types of music, different styles and so on. That really fascinated me and it’s a method I’ve inherited from my time with Mychael.

“Journey" is colorful, orchestral, dynamic and thematic. I guess only few people know how your other works sound like. Can you describe your earlier works and perhapts point out what your personal style sounds like?

Sure. I’ve been really lucky considering that all of my films have been very different. That is really the creative condition any composer wishes, if he is given new creative challenges everytime. I’d be very sad if anybody would come to me and say ‘I love your score for „Skinwalkers“ and I want the exact same score for my movie’. I’ve been very fortunate with this, I’ve done romantic comedies, musicals, a hip hop score, I’ve done werewolf movies and more family-oriented films, I’ve had an inspirational film. So its hard for me to put my finger on what my personal style is. People tell me they can hear the “Lockington sound” within all of these different types of scores, which is nice to hear.

What kind of projects do you wish to score in the near future to evolve your personal style?

I’d really love to do a musical along the lines of „Moulin Rouge“, which was so extremely well done. I’m actually in negotiation to do something like that. I’d also like to to some more dramatic projects, even some period pieces and I think I will get the chance to do this at some point. I’ve been very fortunate that I have this diversity in my portfolio and I hopefully will continue this.

There is a successfull composer cradle named Remote Control, supervised by Hans Zimmer. Was it ever an option to apply for work there to get into the business?

Well, I never chose to go that route. I basically decided very early on that I wanted to work with talented younger directors, who are doing their first or second film. For a composer it really takes a long time to work your way up in Hollywood.  But directors can have one film for which they get recognised and instantly have the opportunity to do a very large film as their next project. I really said to myself, I should stick with these great young directors who are making very good films. That gives me the enjoyable task of working with them and writing good scores to their movies, but also considering the possibility that other people recognise how talented they were. I’d hope to continue relationship in such a case and move on with he or she as they grow their careers.

Considering “Journey” your brakethrough in Hollywood: Would you say it is easy or hard for a talented composer to get such a chance?

Well, I think there are so many talented composers out there that I really feel very fortunate to have met the right people and to have had the chance. There really is certain amount of luck, because a fair number of talented composers do not get this opportunity.

Do you listen to film music and compare your own work with other composers scores?

[laughs] I don’t actually, but I used to. When I started to get into this business I really enjoyed listening to film scores. I appreciate them now, when I see a movie with a good score, but I really don’t listen to them on their own anymore. I want to maintain my own style and vision of my own work, so I try to listen to other types of music more than listening to film scores.

We mentioned your collaboration with the Dannas. But where did the musical life of Andrew Lockington actually start?

I had a musical education, I studied piano and at high school I played in a band and wrote a lot of songs. I also released an album. After high school I went on to study music at university, composition and orchestration. Then I wrote jingles for a year for the advertising industry. That was when I decided to try to get into film music and I met Mychael Danna an became his assistant.

What seems most important in your musical education to you?

One of the best things I learned in university was singing in the choir. This was a requirement and we sang a lot of different styles of music from different periods. It allowed me to subconsciously absorb a lot of the really great compositional techniques that were used by composers from the last 400 years. We were performing the music and I was really able to follow the voices and I was able to examine the development of a voice line and a melodical line through the different bass or baritone voices. That really opened my eyes a lot. But I must say when you’re doing your first score for a movie, nothing compares to the education you get from having been someone’s assistant or orchestrator. I’d already participated on so many high-quality and also bigger budget films, that this really prepared me for the business.
I think you can’t really learn composing, that is something you have to figure out yourself. The programs at the university are designed to help you to find your own voice. When it comes to doing composing as a job in the business, the university can’t really tell you how to do it, you simply must dive in and do it and be part of the process.

You’re among the youngest composers in Hollywood. What are your plans for the future? Dream projects? Oscar 2010?

[laughs] Well, I must say, so many of the projects I’ve worked on the last ten years have just been great experiences. Just like „Journey To The Center Of The Earth“, it is such a rewarding experience to write and record the score and really feel like I’m helping the film. Sure, t is really nice to have people appreciate what I’m doing, but the real reward comes in the act of doing. I’ve done small films and large films and all have been very rewarding. I hope I can really continue to do such diverse projects, and write music that contributes to the storytelling. I will continue to seek out films like those for the future.
Right now I’m working on a new film which is called „City Of Ember“. It’s a very beautiful und very exciting movie and I recommend everybody to keep an eye out for it.  It’s being released in North America in October.

Thank you very much and good luck for the future.

Thanks to you too.

Jan Zwilling / 01.08.08