by
Paul Tonks
soundtrack -- n. / Pron. "sound ( trak"
1. The narrow strip at one side of cinema film carrying the sound recording.
2. The music that accompanies a movie.
3. A commercial recording of such music.
4. A bastardised phrase record labels use to sell you crappy songs that have nothing to do with the movie they're apparently associated with.
ELIA CMIRAL: RUNNING FROM MONSTERS
Seeing RONIN in late 1998 was something of a gamble. I really hadn’t thought much of THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, so director John Frankenheimer was really going to have to win me back. It took about 20 seconds. The movie opens with giant expository text screencards and then moves into grimy photography of a night in Paris. Even better, there’s no dialogue for 5 minutes. Instead, suspicious glances between Robert De Niro, Natasha McElhone, Jean Reno and Stellan Skarsgård are supported by a wonderfully evocative piece of music. I’d heard the soulful tones of the duduk (an Armenian reed instrument) prominently before in THE CROW, and would do again in GLADIATOR, but I maintain that this is still its most beautiful use in film.
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This was my (and most international audiences’) introduction to the music of Elia Cmiral (pronounced ee-lee-ah smee-ral). Born in Czechoslovakia, he displayed an ear for interesting compositions early on. This led him to theatre work in Sweden and later to Los Angeles where he studied with a view toward a career in film music. After scoring the cult movie APARTMENT ZERO, there was a brief return to Sweden before good ol’ Don Johnson brought him aboard the premiere season of NASH BRIDGES. Grapevine word on Cmiral eventually led to an audition with Frankenheimer for RONIN, and there a cinematic career was forged. Subsequently, Cmiral’s projects have included STIGMATA, BATTLEFIELD EARTH, BONES and now (WES CRAVEN PRESENTS:) THEY.
Before talking to Elia I spoke with Producer Tom Engelman (currently working on THE LAST SAMURAI). I wanted to hear from someone else how a composer makes it to a movie and why.
TOM ENGELMAN: “The route was that I’d heard about him through the creative grapevine and the fact that he brings a kind of classic, passionate sensibility to his work, but that he’s very flexible and open to new technology and new sounds. However, my Editor knew of him too.
I then called a director friend, Rupert Wainwright, who had worked with him on STIGMATA. He had wonderful things to say about Elia’s ability to keep on cracking at things.
“It’s when the movie really starts to feel like a movie when you visit the composers. I think he is, in the best sense of the word, a ‘Showman.’ A Producer walks into his studio, he turns down the lights, he makes sure the music is just right as you settle in, he gets you a drink to whet your whistle, does a little small talk so you forget about fighting the traffic to get out to his house and then he unveils something to you. Sometimes film music becomes about finding the tone of the piece. Elia’s at the forefront of the creative team solidifying the final tone of the product.”
Elia then took up the story of THEY. The final tone of this product was certainly something he worked hard for. Originally Radar Pictures was making the movie without a U.S. distributor. Then when Radar entered the Miramax family, it became a Dimension property. With that also came the WES CRAVEN PRESENTS: tag (the 5th project to be graced with his name). The composer was on board before the behind-the-scenes shift however, and so recalls a time before the production came to be about running from monsters …
ELIA CMIRAL: “It was a psychological drama with a beautiful story I loved from the very beginning. We discover 5 minutes before the end that everything has happened in the mind of a poor beautiful girl in a mental hospital. She’s suffering severe schizophrenia and is under heavy medication. She wakes up screaming in a room without furniture, and walks to the locked door to look through the window to see all the people we saw in the movie – they’re patients. A male nurse was her boyfriend for example. So everything we saw in the movie was a dream, and I loved that.”
PAUL TONKS: Those layers of reality are usually great material for a composer to work with.
ELIA CMIRAL: “Absolutely. There were no monsters. Everything was in darkness, and she was scared of the dark. Whatever you see attacking her now, that was not originally in the movie. It was very atmospheric and abstract. Then we discover it’s all in her head. In one way it reminded me of the story in JACOB’S LADDER. Everything was inside his head and then stopped the moment he died. This was the same kind of thing.”
PAUL TONKS: How far did you get in writing before things changed?
ELIA CMIRAL: “Sometime into Christmas of last year I’d written 3 or 4 cues for this version of the movie. They were very emotional. Some of them are still on the album, but in the movie they were re-edited.”
PAUL TONKS: Whenever new footage is added it changes not just the tone, but all your beats.
ELIA CMIRAL: “Exactly. Now those cues were too soft. I think it was January or February when Miramax got the movie, and I’d written for about a month. Then I had to wait while they reshot the ending.
Maybe a month later I saw the new draft. It was very different. Now we saw the teeth and dripping saliva. Suddenly there were monsters. I had to re-write everything I’d written, plus another cue. Then everything stopped again because Miramax didn’t like the ending. They did a couple of previews and the audience loved the ending. Miramax still didn’t, so they re-shot it. Then in the preview with the new ending, people didn’t like it! There was a further screening where they showed both versions, and again the points were slightly higher for the director’s ending. But Miramax wanted theirs.”
PAUL TONKS: You described this process as coitus interruptus.
ELIA CMIRAL: “It kept stopping and starting. It was very frustrating. The editing constantly altered the perception of the movie and consequently affected the music. It was very frustrating, and I guess not only for me. But on the other hand, producers and studios have the right to make any changes they want. We have to be good craftsmen and follow the changes and re-write score without hurting the quality of the music or our artistic integrity. Nobody said it should be easy!”
PAUL TONKS: How long did you work on it altogether?
ELIA CMIRAL: “I recorded in Seattle and mixed in Vancouver in July. That had to be done very fast, because although they can have lots of time to edit the movie, when it comes to the music there’s no time at all! I started sometime in March on the new version after the first re-shoot. So 3 months from then. But I didn’t write all the time. I did a short movie.
(SON OF SATAN - This Internet Short from Fox Searchlab was previously linked to from the Column. New movies sporadically appear at: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/lab/shorts/ )
“I kept myself busy. I also spent time with my family. I wrote a couple of synopses. I started to work on a RONIN concert suite. And on THEY I was re-writing many cues. Probably more than half of the score I re-wrote 10 times. But as I said, this is part of the job.”
PAUL TONKS: Did you have to turn work down?
ELIA CMIRAL: “I did not want to mess up with another serious commitment. I really wanted to get this one done right. Especially the way I work. SON OF SATAN was very different. I did it for my friend and the movie probably has no more than 15 minutes of music. It was 10 cues for small orchestra. I started
it on a Friday and was finished with writing by Sunday.”
PAUL TONKS: Do you program everything yourself?
ELIA CMIRAL: “I do. I program everything myself in Digital Performer on my Macintosh G4. I do a complete arrangement with instrumentation in my sequencer. During the process of writing the orchestral score I also program the synthesisers and sound design that will be part of my score. For me, musical sound design is part of the colours in my orchestra. I used a guitar player who provided some interesting sounds. You hear more of that in the emotional cues in the early part of the film. The last reel changed drastically to more action and horror cues.”
PAUL TONKS: What’s your ultimate definition of this score’s style?
ELIA CMIRAL: “The tone of the score of course reflects the tone, fear,
mystery, madness, etc., of the picture. So the score is very dark, expressionistic and contemporary with electronica.”
PAUL TONKS: Not many composers can recognise their own signature style. Fans do, such as for John Barry, John Williams or Danny Elfman.
ELIA CMIRAL: “It’s more a question for a musicologist than for me. It's
difficult to define one’s own style, but I think music intensity and contemporary
combinations of orchestra. I also can write good and memorable tunes, but I
don't think I've had many chances so far. Except maybe RONIN. There are some
nice melodic piano pieces in THEY though. When I was in Prague I absorbed
Penderecki, Ligeti and contemporary concert repertoire. I loved music concrete and electronic music. I guess all this I combine in my scores, is that a signature style?”
PAUL TONKS: One stylistic trademark of yours I’ve noted score to score is in sustaining a note. An effect you seem to like to do this with is scraping a drumstick on a cymbal.
ELIA CMIRAL: “I like that kind of sound. I like scraping on gong-gongs, cymbals and all those metallic sounds. Bowing cymbals is another of my favourite sounds. It’s played with a double bass bow and you get some amazing overtones and harmonics. I didn’t really invent this kind of thing; I just incorporate them into my scores. I think you’re right though that I use that, those sustained metallic notes in my scores.”
PAUL TONKS: THEY was recorded in Seattle for budgetary reasons wasn’t it?
ELIA CMIRAL: “The decision to record in Seattle is in my opinion the reasonable way to go to keep a project on a feasible budget for strictly non-union projects. The decisions of union or non-union recording are made by producers, not by me. Los Angeles and London are best, but expensive.”
PAUL TONKS: Whenever you come over to London I’ll do my best to make it cheaper for you!
ELIA CMIRAL: “Great, thank you. I’ll tell the producers next time. So far I’ve just not had another movie after RONIN to take me there.
But really it costs the same as recording here, except it’s a buy-out deal (meaning no fee would have to be paid to the musicians for the re-use of the music, such as in producing an album). Seattle is a simple quick flight. I’ve done maybe 5 or 6 scores already in Seattle. So it goes really smoothly there. I love then mixing in Vancouver. We were in Bryan Adams’ studio (The Warehouse). I get to have a walk in the morning, pick up a cappuccino on the way. It was pleasant in that way, but stressful in the amount of music we had to mix. But it turned out very well. I’m very pleased with the final result.”
PAUL TONKS: Was there much work to do to finalise an album or were the cues all mixed & ready to go?
ELIA CMIRAL: “Everything was mixed and ready. I re-edited a couple of cues for musical reasons. The order on the CD is not the same as the chronology of the film. I have a feeling that an album should be listened to as more of a suite than the story structure. An album I strongly feel should stand on its own feet.”
PAUL TONKS: You have the same opinion as John Williams.
ELIA CMIRAL: “I am happy to have the same opinion as John!”
PAUL TONKS: You’re working on WRONG TURN now.
ELIA CMIRAL: “This is straight horror from beginning to end. It is a
bizarre, morbid story. People are chased. People are killed. It's about how
to survive and win against evil mountain people. A few young people get stranded in the mountains in West Virginia. It is very interesting and challenging for me; the dark story, location, an inner connection with the movie DELIVERANCE, which is even mentioned by one character. Stan Winston did the make-up and is also one of the Producers.”
PAUL TONKS: I’d like to return to something you subtly mentioned earlier, a RONIN concert suite.
ELIA CMIRAL: “After John Frankenheimer died last year I took it very hard. I saw him only a couple of weeks before at his house. We talked about his next movie. He was a kind of mentor for me. Like a grandpa. He opened the door for me. After I finished THEY, I had a dream about seeing myself write a concert score. I woke up in the morning and I had a clear structure in my head. So I ran to my studio, picked up the cues and took some scissors and literally cut the RONIN score - a copy - into the shape I’d seen in the night. At the moment the score is in the computer. I’m doing a couple of last touches, and then I’ll be ready to re-orchestrate the whole thing as a new form. It’s actually built up from 4 or 5 cues. Already I’m very excited about.”
PAUL TONKS: You and I interviewed a couple of years back and I asked if you had an aspirations to write for the concert hall, and you said you could only hope that something would come along to inspire you.
ELIA CMIRAL: “It was an impulse. In honour to John I want to dedicate this to him.”
“I read your last article (TEN INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS THAT HAVEN’T MADE A FILM COMPOSER’S JOB BETTER). That was very interesting. I think there are even more things that you didn’t mention! Personalities and egos, frustrations and pressure from family and friends. I try to compensate by writing synopses and trying other things. I keep busy. I definitely am not idle!”
FURTHER INFO:
WRONG TURN will be recorded and finalised in April. I’ll announce news of an album as and when that happens.
BONES is set for an album release on the Intrada label in the near future.
It’s therefore a busy time for the composer, and I thank him for taking the time out for our conversations.
THEY should be available on album as this interview goes online. It can be ordered directly from the record label – (http://www.lalalandrecords.com/
Here’s an excellent Fanpage with plenty of additional information on the composer: http://www.angelfire.com/music2/eliacmiral/
COMPETITION TIME:
Send me an e-mail detailing your most memorable cinematic discovery of a composer. The two tales that most warm the cockles of my heart will win a signed copy (by Elia, not me!) of the new THEY album.
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