Film composers roundtable panel: ‘Migration,’ ‘Rustin’ and ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
When a composer gets hired to score a movie or a show, what is step one? Do they read the entire script, page by page? Or do they start writing music based on images or ideas? These are just some of the topics discussed by three top composers when they join Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&A event with 2023 / 2024 awards contenders: John Powell for “Migration,” Branford Marsalis for “Rustin” and Daniel Pemberton for “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.”
Watch our fascinating group roundtable panel above, and click on each name to view the contender’s individual interview.
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Powell tells us that he “used to think it was a great idea to read the script” — that is, until one time when he “came up with a whole bunch of brilliant ideas for the script and then saw the film, which was completely f***ing different.” The “Migration” composer reveals, “It drove me nuts! I had to write the whole thing again. So I deliberately don’t ever read scripts now and preferably I try and come in as late as possible. I mean, basically I try and come in as close to the end as possible so that it’s finished. Then I immediately know what the film is and what the tone is.”
“John just nailed it,” laughs Marsalis. “I got a script writing incidental music for a play and I wrote it all out and the director says, ‘This is ridiculous. You haven’t seen the play yet.’ And when I went to a rehearsal and saw the play, it was amazing and I knew I’d written the wrong thing, so that will not happen to me a third time.” The “Rustin” composer adds, “So I’m just done with that. So I agree, same story.”
Pemberton has a “slightly different” mentality. “I’m not the goody two shoes who hands in his homework on time,” he explains. “Yeah, I always like reading the scripts. It really depends on what movie you’re doing. I think every movie is quite different … With ‘Spider-Verse,’ I was involved for incredibly long, almost five years from the ending of the first one. And I think that kind of closeness on a production can be really good because you can really, really get under the skin of a film and really make something that feels really different.”
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