by
Paul Tonks
DAVID ARNOLD: THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM
Every time a new Bond movie comes out, the newspapers run glossy supplements of the all-time best babes, car and watch manufacturers strive to suggest theirs are the sexiest products on the market, fans pray the key elements haven't been fudged with and record store shelves bulge with new compilation albums.
DIE ANOTHER DAY is no exception, and for British composer David Arnold the sense of familiarity must be both comforting and overwhelming at the same time. Suddenly he's inundated with interview requests all vying for the same morsels of information about plot devices, uses of the James Bond Theme and to re-tell his tale of being seduced into the movie world by YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE when but a lad. I've contributed to that in the past and promised (myself) I wouldn't rake him over the same coals this time.
So here's some history partly culled from my own interview archives:
THE YOUNG AMERICANS (1993) was an unexpected success catapulting his name (and Björk's) out into the world. That Dean Devlin / Roland Emmerich blockbuster machine caught him, locked in a room labelled "BIG AND BOLD" for a few years and out he came with STARGATE, INDEPENDENCE DAY and GODZILLA. Once he landed the fantasy job of his first Bond movie, the world had him well and truly pegged as that Big Themes Guy. During the scoring of TOMORROW NEVER DIES I asked Arnold if for any reason he couldn't have done it, who else he thought could?
"I'd be a bit stuck. It's difficult to imagine anyone else doing it with the film at heart. Realising it needs to be you in the driving seat with Barry alongside. I couldn't imagine Horner, Williams, Goldsmith or Zimmer doing it. There was talk of Graeme Revell and James Newton Howard."
Rather wisely, Arnold began something then that would re-define his style. With the aid of The Propellerheads, TOMORROW NEVER DIES was noted as much for its drum-and-bass cues as its more general homage to the series' John Barry style. At this time he also put out the Bond-themed solo album SHAKEN AND STIRRED. Skip to THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH and there, the lines really blurred.
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"I wanted to go a different way musically. The last one obviously tipped its hat towards John Barry quite considerably. In this one we play the Bond theme twice in the whole film. The music has more of an identity of its own and I wanted to be more driven by contemporary sounds. Having done everything I ever wanted to do in the last one, I was looking at a blank canvas and thinking: 'now what?' I decided I wanted to push the rhythmic aspect of it much harder this time. In the same way we did for the cue "Backseat Driver" in the last one, I wanted the action stuff here to be very contemporary sounding. But not just sounding like someone had slapped a lot of records on it. My general take on it was I wanted to make something leaner and more muscular."
Muscling through any traditionalist resistance, the samples and effects were clearly a far more interesting re-definition in the updating of the Bond image than the misfire of Eric Serra's GOLDENEYE ("no brash swagger" as Arnold explained it to me once). By and large, this has been the stylistic approach Arnold has followed ever since. And what's the ultimate proof this has been warmly accepted into the world? Look no further than George C. Clinton's spoof in GOLDMEMBER!
After visiting the recording sessions for DIE ANOTHER DAY, we interviewed just as Arnold had put the album to bed.
PAUL TONKS: When did you know you were going to do this one? Because you knew about the second one just as you finished the first.
DAVID ARNOLD: Mike (Wilson) and Barbara (Broccoli - Bond Producers)intimated at the end of THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH that they'd like me to do the next one. Although no one's said the same this time! I think that's just because everyone's too busy with lots of other things going on. I'd be disappointed if I wasn't asked to do the next one, put it that way. It was around about the same time. It was no secret that everyone gets on well. They're happy with what I've done and they trust me with it. Hopefully it's a risk-free situation. You still have to come up with it. There's no guarantee of anything. It does get rid of an awful lot anxiety as far as filmmakers are concerned.
PAUL TONKS: At the session you said you were pausing for thought about this one from the start - did THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH feel like you might have said all you could about Bond?
DAVID ARNOLD: The thing with any film, especially where you're coming back to for a third one - the story changes a little but the characters stay pretty much the same. The situations aren't all that different either. You're kind of re-making a film. A little different each time. It's basically the same character facing a similar set of challenges, with the odd variation. I think it's fair to say that's what the Bond films are all about. I liken it to if you ascend Everest and get to the top and stick your flag in you feel pretty pleased with yourself. Then you come down again. And then everyone says you've got to go up again but you're not allowed to take the same route and you have to take different kit. If halfway up to the summit the second time someone asks if you want to do it again, you'll probably say "no." But when you get to the top you might say 'yes'. Back down at the bottom you feel like it wasn't so bad. If you ask me anything in the middle of doing it, it's almost like I'd rather always be doing something else. I never want to do any of it ever again, because it's always extremely difficult and tiring. It's quite isolating as well. Coming out the other end and then listening to it you think it doesn't sound all that bad! Maybe I could do a bit better next time.
PAUL TONKS: One of the things that must make it worthwhile each time is having a different director bringing a different perspective. You told me the great thing about Lee Tamahori was that he was up for anything new.
DAVID ARNOLD: Well, Lee's not British, for a start. The majority of directors we've had have been. Actually, have they all been British? Let me think... Roger Spottiswoode, Michael Apted, John Glen, Guy Hamilton... I think they nearly all are. (For the record, Tamahori is from New Zealand, while Spottiswoode, Apted and Glen were born in the U.K. Hamilton was born in France. Additionally, there's Terence Young, born in China, Lewis Gilbert in the U.K. and Martin, also from New Zealand) I think there's a very British sensibility to Bond, and people outside of this country have a different opinion on what Bond is and what makes it work. Lee, societally has a different attitude to what Bond's about. In Britain we hold it quite close to our hearts. People are expecting Lee to dramatise it more than Michael Apted, but he was as keen to push up the signature moments of girls, gadgets, guns and cars. It was an interesting exercise watching that work its way through the script development. It certainly has a more contemporary feel to it. It feels more like a contemporary American action film, but it still has to remain a Bond film.
PAUL TONKS: Is a part of that the fact you haven't quoted the whole of the Bond Theme?
DAVID ARNOLD: Yeah. That caused a little kafuffle didn't it? There was a little bit of Internet fall-out over that. Everyone was reading too much into what you meant by that, I think.
PAUL TONKS: I was just reporting what I heard, but of course it's just one way of doing something a little different, isn't it?
DAVID ARNOLD: Exactly. We don't play the whole thing from start to finish in order in this film.
PAUL TONKS: It's one of a composer's tools of course to quote part of a theme.
DAVID ARNOLD: Right. Of course it is. The fact you have such a rich resource in that theme means you don't have to use much of it for it to do a big chunk of work for you.
PAUL TONKS: What other things did you do to assist in the contemporisation?
DAVID ARNOLD: In the Hovercraft chase and the chase on the ice flows with the Aston Martin and the Jag, we were doing some - how much of this you will hear is another thing, since it's all underneath explosions - we were doing a lot of chopping up of the orchestra and recording orchestral elements independently of each other. Recording the brass, strings, woodwind and percussion separately. We rehearsed them as an ensemble, then recorded the sections separately so we could mess about with a section. Another thing I've started doing, which I'll probably try doing more of, is actually writing the phrase that I want, then writing it backwards. So I take a recorded version and then transcribe that backwards-playing forwards. Get the orchestra to play it forwards, and then play it backwards! So it comes out the right way in the end.
PAUL TONKS: So you're turning into the David Lynch of film composers?
DAVID ARNOLD: It's not that overt on this film. You can't get that smart, because you draw people's attention away from what's happening on the screen. But it's a very interesting way of having an orchestral presence that sounds slightly off-kilter. On the next very dramatic thing I do, what I'm thinking of doing is writing the whole score backwards. So that's writing it forwards, transcribing it backwards, then having the orchestra play the whole thing backwards and then playing that recording backwards so it comes out the right way! (Pause for LAUGHTER!) It sounds very convoluted.
PAUL TONKS: You get that down pat and then possibilities are endless.
DAVID ARNOLD: Yeah! They started doing it in videos some time ago. They'd have someone lip-synching a sped up version of a song, so they could be walking through a situation lip-synching in normal time but everything would be moving around them in slow motion. It's a not dissimilar approach to that.
PAUL TONKS: What about the use of choir?
DAVID ARNOLD: It's a lot more prominent than the little boat thing in TOMORROW NEVER DIES. Although I have since found that it's in MOONRAKER as well! It's for The Icarus, the space mirror / magnifying glass that Graves has at his disposal. It's really for that. Vocally it echoes the Korean chanting we've got at the beginning of the movie. So it ties a few loose ends emotionally together. Also when you've got a choir it does make everything sound bigger and flashier. There comes a point when you can't play any louder. When they temp everything with "Carmina Burana" it's difficult to compete with that without some voices!
PAUL TONKS: Who was the guy assisting you on the orchestral sampling idea?
DAVID ARNOLD: Rob Playford. He was a Programmer and runs his own record company called Moving Shadow. It's like a Drum-and-Bass label. I met him 7 or 8 years ago and we started on a couple of little pieces. He went off to work with Goldie for quite a few years and did all the programming on his albums. Then he concentrated more on his record company. When I did CHANGING LANES I gave him a shout because I knew I wanted that kind of approach. He's absolutely genius with computers, but he'll be the first to say he's not a musician. I've learned a lot from him in terms of creating unusual sounds or me giving him sounds and doing stuff with them. Making them unrecognisable. We worked together on creating a palate of sounds. Then he went on to be my technical support for the whole film. So he took a great weight off my shoulders. He'd never really worked on a film before. CHANGING LANES was his first one and that was a very intimate affair. It was in my little room with everything built and written there. Then we only had one string session. So it was quite a staggering leap to go from that to a film like this.
PAUL TONKS: There was a leap in the proportion of electronic overlays from THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH to TOMORROW NEVER DIES. Is it a proportionate leap again from THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH to DIE ANOTHER DAY?
DAVID ARNOLD: I think you got it right when you said it's like an extension of both. There are cues on this that electronically go far beyond the stuff I did in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH. I also think there are orchestral cues that are far more intense than in either of the others. So I think it's fair to say there are extremes of both on this. We've done some new things. It helps that we have a Korean factor, that ethnic flavour. The Cuban part of the film takes us to a completely different place. Then we have Graves' Ice Palace and diamond mine, which is a very high-tech place, so we go more electronic for that. Then we go for a hybrid of everything for the last 13-minute blowout.
PAUL TONKS: Let's talk about the album, because you hit a wall with the logistics of scheduling the thing. There's about 40 minutes on there from 100 minutes recorded. Are you happy you've represented most things?
(WARNING - ANSWER CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS)
DAVID ARNOLD: Well, I think it's all fairly well represented. As a listening experience it feels like there are huge holes in it for me obviously, because I know there's a lot missing. We have to leap from one situation to another in order to stay within the bounds of about 45 minutes. There are cues I would have preferred to have had on which emotionally link one thing to another. But that's not a luxury I have at this time. We finished mastering the album Saturday night (October 5th) even though we're still mixing the cues for the film. I had to do the album because it was being flown out on Sunday to be manufactured Monday. We start off with the Gun Barrel and the first landing on the Korean beach by Bond, to him meeting Colonel Moon. Then we skip to the Hovercraft chase, which is pretty full-on electronic and orchestral chopped up ethnic madness! We leap from there to the second part of the Korean sequence when Bond emerges from his torture 14-15 months later. There's quite a lot of dramatics in there. Then we go to Cuba, which is party time! Then we have the reveal of Jinx and her affair with James. Then we hit a couple of big Icarus reveals. We do a couple of James Bond creeping around to see what's going on pieces. Couple of big car chases. And then on to the big finale on the plane.
PAUL TONKS: Have you got the whole piece on the album?
DAVID ARNOLD: It's all there, yes.
(END OF SPOILER ZONE)
PAUL TONKS: You had to do an early recording session in August didn't you?
DAVID ARNOLD: We had to do it early because we had this arbitrary delivery date for the soundtrack album, which meant if we'd tried to mix everything we had to mix we'd have had to do the whole thing in two days! So we had to have an early set of three sessions to take advantage of the fact I could be writing and supervising Geoff Foster mixing that day's work. That three or four days mixing we did then bought us the three or four days that we didn't have to find at this end. It was not pleasant and an interruption and a bit of a pain, but there you go.
PAUL TONKS: You had an almost reel-by-reel writing situation going on for TOMORROW NEVER DIES, but THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH wasn't like that or this, was it?
DAVID ARNOLD: No, it wasn't. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH had the advantage of a reasonably trouble-free shoot where everything was fine. I think they did that as a result of TOMORROW NEVER DIES having a very, very compressed post-production schedule in order to meet their November release date. They started in plenty of time for this one. We should have had the film six weeks before we actually got it. But Pierce busted his knee on the set, which meant he couldn't shoot for two weeks. Then they were in Spain shooting in really bad weather, so they lost a lot of time there. So through no one's fault the thing slipped and we ended up with the same post-production schedule we had on TOMORROW NEVER DIES. And a not dissimilar recording situation, having to do things early and deliver the album before we'd finished scoring the film! But at least we'd written and recorded everything this time. We just hadn't finished mixing everything. It's not quite as bad. The only thing bad about the situation is the amount of time we've got on the album. I think we could have done with 65 to 70 minutes to really tell the story in music, but probably the only people who are going to be upset about that are film score fans. I imagine Joe Public won't be all that troubled about listening to 45 minutes.
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PAUL TONKS: When it comes to Bond, you're almost in the same fan territory as for the STAR WARS music. There are whole specific sub-sections of fans on top of the main group.
DAVID ARNOLD: Well, yeah, one would hope that there's a little bit of that. It'll be interesting to see what does happen with this one though. The advantage of having Madonna on this as a worldwide phenomenon in terms of exposure for this album. She should bring a few more people to the party. If a few more people get into film music as a result of that, I think it'll be good for everyone.
PAUL TONKS: I was going to wait for you to bring up the subject of the song...
DAVID ARNOLD: It's no great secret that I think since the Barry era the songs have become less and less about the film and more and more about the marketing opportunities. It's understandable from a marketing point of view inasmuch that when you spend this much money on a movie you want to get as much exposure as you can. Amongst fans of Bond music and film music fans in general, we would all like to think that there is a way of combining both. But when the sales sheet comes out, which is a huge part of all this, then you say you'd really like this person to do it, but they say they haven't sold nearly as many records as that person. That's kind of what you're dealing with: how big an exposure of the album can we get through the artist? It's definitely much more marketing driven now than it ever was before. Let's not forget that Bond was one of the first movies to have a signature song and then other people followed on. We would all like to think there'd be more synchronicity between the songs and the score, but the likelihood of that happening is down to the artist, the producers and everyone involved being on the same page at the same time. If one party says they'd rather do it by themselves then you can't argue with that any more than if someone told me they wanted me to incorporate their ideas into my score. It's easy to understand why it happens in every instance. But my hope in every instance is that a) it's a good song, and b) that it does the job of getting people in to see the movie and doesn't embarrass anyone. A Bond song is still something that people look forward to.
PAUL TONKS: I saw Don Black recently at a party and mentioned I'd seen you working on this one. You guys are itching to work together again, aren't you?
DAVID ARNOLD: Yeah! Well, we had kind of started working on a song that remains unfinished. The theme of the song is in the film and is called "I Will Return", because at the end of every Bond movie it says "James Bond Will Return." I fancied the idea of writing a song about that because that hadn't been done before. Don came up with an amazing first verse, which set me off. We started on it but then found out pretty quick that there wasn't going to be an opportunity to place it as a song in the film or on the End Titles. So we'll save it for the next one because it's dead good!
PAUL TONKS: So what are the chances of a DIE ANOTHER DAY, Volume 2 album?
DAVID ARNOLD: Well, I'm mixing everything in stereo for that. I have everything. I'm hoping that there will be. They're always a bit of a let down because ideally you'd like for it to be heard from start to finish as it's meant to be heard. But it's recorded and paid for, so all we're talking about is manufacturing the thing, which doesn't cost that much. I've run it past Warners to see what the likelihood is in a year's time once all the mileage has been had out of this one. We could do with at least another 40 minutes. There are only a couple of things I wouldn't bother with because they're not of any great consequence musically or dramatically. But there's lots of great stuff I would like out there...
PAUL TONKS: I wanted to ask you about doing mock-ups, which is a fairly new aspect of the film composer's job. How do you feel about doing them in general? Do they slow you down or actually help you out?
DAVID ARNOLD: I get someone else to do it from the score just because it's another day and a half's work. When you're trying to get through 100 minutes of music it's the last thing you need. It takes you away from writing and stops you progressing. When there are electronic elements that are as intense and difficult as the stuff that I'm doing on this film, it's almost like you're writing a cue four times. You write it once, sketch twice, then work on the orchestration, then design the electronics and programme it. It's like having to do three different scores for the same cue and to then have to get that into finished orchestral representative mock-up is another day. It takes forever and I find it very depressing. But I did it on this one with a guy called Matt Robertson. The electronic stuff I'd done already. So I just recorded a stereo bounce of that and he went away with the score. It's fine for giving people an idea of what's going. It doesn't sound very much like what they're going to end up with. It was useful for Lee in this instance since he was pulled all over the place with visual effects and editing in what was a very compact concertinaed post-production schedule. The amount of time that we could spend together was quite short, so I think he found it valuable. I put things on CD and sent it over for them to put against the film to watch during the edit. The advantage of it is that everyone knows pretty much what they're going to get. It makes the recording go a lot quicker and smoother because he's not going to be surprised by something he's not heard before. The disadvantages are you have to do it all the time. It takes ages. And you can only hope that whoever's listening to it has got the ears and the foresight to be able to tell it isn't what it's really going to be like. I was speaking to John Altman about it and he had a very fine analogy that I have used ever since. I tell a director it's like giving a script to your actors and having them shout their lines. You'll hear the words and what they're saying, but it's not a performance.
PAUL TONKS: Who else other than Lee gets to hear the mock-ups?
DAVID ARNOLD: What you would like is to give them to Lee and that's it. What you must realise is that at soon as you let anything out of the studio, the world has it! Within five minutes, MGM in Los Angeles have heard it. You can't be naïve enough to think you can get away with a rough. You've got to make it as good as it can be. Someone's going to request it, and it might be the Head of Universal and they're going to judge you on the strength of that. I'd like to be in my little room burning off a demo to CD for Lee and sending to Lee's little room where he listens to it. But what happens is, eight people get a copy of it and the next thing you know MGM Music are on the phone saying they need this and that.
PAUL TONKS: Is there anyone other than Lee giving you opinions and suggestions on the music?
DAVID ARNOLD: Everyone's got an opinion! Same as everyone's got an opinion about the script. Everyone has their idea about what should happen in a Bond movie because we know them so well. I know what I want to do, but I'm quite happy to listen to anyone's ideas. Barbara and Michael pretty much leave it to me and the director. I had quite a few conversations with Christian Wagner the Editor. But it was mainly between me and Lee. That's the good thing about being over here and away from Hollywood. Makes it more difficult to be interfered with! Bond movies are sort of a law unto themselves. There's a sort of bulletproof vibe to them. If you get it right you'll be OK and they don't conform to the normal laws of filmmaking to a certain extent. It's good to get on with a core group of people. They've tested it and people have offered thoughts on what should and shouldn't happen. Ultimately I'm sitting looking at an image with a blank piece of paper, and regardless of what anyone says the notes that go down I have to come with and they don't. You take it all on board then shut the door and make your own mind up.
PAUL TONKS: Between these last two Bonds, you did SHAFT, BABY BOY, THE MUSKETEER, ZOOLANDER, CHANGING LANES and ENOUGH. I wondered which ones are closest to the musical voice you really enjoy exploring? Earlier on, you were saying about the technique of orchestral sampling.
DAVID ARNOLD: That's just a technique. Ideally you wouldn't be adopting odd techniques to say what you want to say. If you're on a genre film where you're required to do things that have been done quite a lot, then you would make an attempt at doing something different. The idea of doing another BABY BOY is very appealing, in terms of it being a simple story about people. Just very basically and honestly talking about difficult times. It was about real things happening to real people. It's not an easy film to watch, but it has some very intense moments. I found myself watching it again and not quite believing John (Singleton) had let me do it. It is about the young black man's plight in Los Angeles. So what am I doing with it? Music's about people and emotions and if you can recognise that in what's in front of you then you can write about it. Then it isn't a race thing or an ethics thing. It's purely about humanity. I'm not pretending to be familiar with the situations in BABY BOY, but I could understand why things were happening. I think if you have an ounce of carbon running through your body you can relate to most things. I'd rather do - as I'm sure most composers would - something that has emotional resonance, something that spoke of honest things than you know - giant lizards! They have their place, but it is all about variety. You can only eat popcorn and drink Coke so long. Variety. Variety.
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PAUL TONKS: Some years back you told me LAST OF THE DOGMEN was your favourite score. Not your favourite movie! Has that changed?
DAVID ARNOLD: It's probably still about the same things. That was a film that I tried to find the humanity in. Even though it was quite a high concept idea, at it's heart it was about displaced people and how people relate to one another. Anything that's about genuine emotions tend to be my favourite things. The stuff in BABY BOY I really like, even though it's very simple. LAST OF THE DOGMEN falls into the same category. I think there are cues in a lot of my films that touch on those things. I think there are moments in the cue "Antonov" in DIE ANOTHER DAY that are very human and very real. Even in a situation which is in a way so far-fetched you can try and find something real in it. You can make it much more affecting than a cartoon. Anything real I'm a big fan of. But once I've done a couple of those I'm like, "give me a spaceship! Give me another monster. Or give me another Bond."
PAUL TONKS: It's coming up on your decade from THE YOUNG AMERICANS...
DAVID ARNOLD: That's very frightening!
Tonks... Paul Tonks
and David Arnold |
PAUL TONKS: Personally, I think you're still the last big breakout success story. I think the industry's changed too much for it to happen now.
DAVID ARNOLD: I'm not too sure what's going on. There seems to be three different levels of filmmaking going on. There are the 'enormo' films, which are your HARRY POTTER, Bond, SPIDER-MAN. Your big, big movies that tend to be populated by John Williams, Hans Zimmer, and James Horner, probably less so Jerry Goldsmith, of late. Bond's the only thing I participate in at that level. For the last couple of years anyway. Then there's the generic action highbrow adventure drama. BOURNE IDENTITY / K-19 - the ones that don't turn into massive movies. Mid-scale things. Then you get the things that are really interesting for me. Spike Jonze, Paul Thomas Anderson, Chris Nolan - people that are making very interesting films rather than audience-pleasing films. I'd rather be in there. If they turn out to be huge as well, great. I'm far more interested in experimenting and getting to the heart of oddness. Weird twisted lyrical resonant emotional turbulence. As opposed to doing another car chase.
Acknowledgements: David, Trish Hillis, Glen Aitken, Mike Smith.
Recommended Bond resources:
CommanderBond.net
IanFleming.org
Don't miss the chance to win a copy of the BEST OF BOND... JAMES BOND album at the main "Knowing The Score" page, here.
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