Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I never had a mentor, and the reason

why I'm talking to you all now is

to share my experiences so that you might find yourself

in a similar situation and go, OK, he didn't have the answer,

and he felt really insecure, so the fact

that I feel insecure about this may not

be the end of the world.

I don't think any of the really good composers--

composers are arrogant fucks.

There's no doubt about that.

But the fact is, the arrogance is generally

hiding great insecurity that we all carry.

I don't think it's different between a composer and an actor

that way.

Sometimes the more bravado they have about themselves,

it's covering a deep insecurity.

I'm constantly insecure about what I'm doing.

I never know if it's right.

Of course I wish I had a mentor.

Somebody that I can go to that I respected, and go, just

tell me what you think of this and that they

can give me some solid advice.

But I just never had that in my life,

so I had to learn to trust my instincts.

And what I'm telling you right now

is that it's OK to feel unsure of yourself.

And it's OK to feel insecure, even during the process,

even at the end of the process.

You might have moments where you feel like I've triumphed.

I've done this scene.

This scene came out OK.

And then find yourself one week later going, I've failed.

I just-- I don't know where I am right now.

I painted myself into a corner.

I don't know how to get out of it.

It's OK.

You've got to watch your clock.

You've got to keep yourself moving.

But it's OK to not feel really confident in exactly

what you're doing all the time.

And I could tell you after 105, 100-and-something films,

rarely that I approach it feeling really confident.

And generally when I was really confident that way

is because, it's was a sequel.

And I'd already done the heavy lifting,

and now I could approach it with a sense of, oh yeah,

I got this.

I know what I'm doing.

And it's because it's a sequel, and all

I really have to do is kind of reinvent some things

and move around and play with what I've already done.

But that, by far, is not the majority of the writing.

It's filled with doubt.

And I think all artists that are worth their anything are

filled with doubt all the time.

And the few that just don't have any doubt,

I think they're destined become--

they could be very successful.

They could be good workmen.

They could be good craftsmen.

But they're not gonna be the really great artists.

Because I think doubt and art are kind of combined.

They're just-- it's almost impossible

to pull them apart doubt.

Doubting yourself and then finding confidence and moving

forward and then doubting what you've just done

and then working through that, I think

this is the life of a composer, and I

think it's the life of an artist in general.

And it's OK to feel that way.

Having said all that, my doubt, do I ever express that

to the director or a producer?

No way.

Never.

Never.

There is what you feel and what you project,

and what you project is confident.

I got this [BLEEP].

I own it.

I got it.

It's mine.

Don't worry.

Don't worry.

You're good.

That's not necessarily what I feel,

but if I said what I feel, I would

have had a career of about 3.5 years instead of 35 years.

So let me make this clear.

Two sides.

Your feelings and what you're dealing with.

And that's what I'm talking to you about right now.

But who you express that to?

Another composer.

Never your director.

Never, God knows, the studio or the producers.

You have to put on a good face all the time.

You share what you need to share,

and you project what you need to project.

And still allow yourself to feel what you're feeling

and know that it's OK.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

You find yourself analyzing, asking yourself,

is this part of the melody?

Is this turn of the melody?

Is this thing-- is it it?

There's a lot-- a lot of pretty shiny objects there,

and you're trying to sort them through.

And it's way for that little bit shiny thing of going,

me, me, pick me.

And you have to listen to that sometimes.

And it may not always be the right thing, but that's comes

down to instincts.

You develop your instincts however

you need to develop your instincts.

Your instincts are gonna be your life.

When you're a film composer and you're working fast

and you're working under the gun and you're

working under pressure and you always

feel like you need more time, you have to go on instinct.

And you're all gonna find your own way

to find those instincts.

But if you don't find those instincts, you're lost.

You're not going to have a long career.

You'll drive yourself crazy, and eventually you'll

want to get out of it completely because you'll

think you're going mad.

And for those of us who do, in fact, go mad,

but we continue in our careers regardless.

At a certain point, our instincts

start to tell us things, and we learn to go, all right.

It may be right, it may be wrong,

but this is what my instinct's telling me,

so that's where I'm going.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

When you're making these decisions of crossroads

and where to go, you tend to go with your gut.

But sometimes, you know, you try to research as much as you can.

But that research often doesn't really tell you much.

You're still going with your gut,

especially because we're frequently

dealing with somebody who hasn't really done a lot of something

before.

There are certain directors that if they call and they've

done something really well for a long time,

I'm not gonna question.

Now, I may still get a bad movie,

but I'm not gonna question their ability

to do something really well.

Just whether it happens on the project I'm on,

that's the only thing I hope for.

Nobody sets out to make a bad movie.

But you can't say yes to everything

because it takes x number of weeks.

So whether it takes eight weeks or 14 weeks

or five weeks or longer, you just you have to make choices.

Because, all right, if I say yes to this,

I can't do another film for three months,

two and a half months.

And then something else comes along

and you go, oh, man, I'd kill to get off this film.

Now, if you're starting out, these are not your concerns.

Your concerns is getting a job, getting

that first piece of work, getting those things out there.

But I'm talking down the line.

It's like, how do you know, and what do you

do when you're stuck on something that you realize

is just gonna do nothing for you when something much tastier

comes along?

To me, you just-- you suffer through it,

and it just is what it is.

You do the right thing.

You see it through.

And you go, well, that time it just didn't work out.

A lot may depend on what is your point of what you're doing.

Because if you have a really clear objective,

which is to get successful and rich, OK?

If that's what you want and that's

what will make you happy and satisfied,

then it clarifies these choices really simply.

You just go the potential lucrativeness of this project

over this one is higher.

It's like-- then you can actually

get very rational and logical.

This one is more likely-- if I look at it,

this is the kind of movie that does really well overseas.

There's gonna be good income coming in from ASCAP or BMI.

There are many other reasons which I might or might not

make this the choice based as a career decision.

On the other hand, if you really just want to make something,

you've got to mix it up.

I mean, I've made many decisions based on, oh, this is--

I think this is gonna be fairly easy and lucrative,

and I need a break because the last thing I did

felt like it almost killed me.

And sometimes you make your decisions based on that.

You're feeling exhausted, and you're just not up

for what looks like, oh my God, this is

gonna be a serious brain drain.

This one's gonna be a real killer,

and I've just finished one or two killers.

I need a break.

And you'll take something just because it's lighter.

You know what, this is a format.

It's gonna be lighter.

I think the director is known for being

fairly easy to work with.

And it's a type of music that I've

done successfully in the past, and I could just enjoy it.

And then sometimes it's just a career thing, and I go,

I think this thing would just be really potentially a good--

I could see a great future.

If this works out, it leads to many other things.

And I'll make a decision based on that.

Most often, a director comes to me, and I'll just be like,

I like this woman or this man, or I

like the potential of what their excitement is

about the project.

And I could feel their energy and excitement,

and I just get caught up into it.

And I say, yes, and it's done.

They sold it to me.

They sold themselves.

They sold the project on me.

So there's all kinds of different things

that go into that process of decision-making.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

To succeed in a commercial industry

where there's tremendous competition

and you always feel like you're being nipped at from behind

because no matter what you do, there

is plenty of people trying to take your spot.

You have to have ego.

We're ego-driven in the sense that we want to succeed,

and there's a competitiveness in us that drives us on.

It keeps us going.

And that ego, of course, as we all know,

can become absurd and unmanageable,

as it does in many artists where their ego becomes their thing.

They're so ego-driven that you feel like, OK, now this

is crossing into politics, which is pure ego-driven.

But, on the other hand, we aren't in charge.

The director is in charge.

And for that to work, you have to, like,

take your ego down a big notch and allow them to lead.

And you find a way to follow.

You have to manage your ego, and that's not easy.

You're constantly, like, allowing

it to go where it's gonna go, and then you

have to dial it down.

And then sometimes you have to dial it down a lot.

Because if you're really gonna listen to what a director is

trying to tell you, if you're really

gonna try to find a solution to something that's not there,

you have to let your ego go.

You have to let it go completely.

You have to, like, go, all right,

I'm thinking through the director's eyes.

How might the director be viewing this?

And those moments, you have to, like, take your ego

and hang it on the coat rack at the door.

Because without that, you're just gonna fight it.

You're gonna fight it.

You're gonna fight it.

You're gonna fight it.

And you have to remove that and allow yourself to go, where--

how can I get into this other mind?

How can I see through this other mind?

Can I do it?

And there's a constant wrestling match with you

and your pride and your ego.

And, of course, you have to have these things.

If you're without ego, you're gonna

get trounced on very early on somewhere.

You're gonna get squashed.

So you have to have that bit of a warrior in you

to, like, stand up and do battle for what you believe in.

Because that's gonna happen.

And you also have to become the zen priest,

and you have to be able to take that all off and go, all right,

it's just two of us, and I'm not this.

I'm not that.

I'm just trying to hear what you're saying and understand.

And that's the moment where it becomes very zen.

And balancing that out is something you just

need to learn to do, but I think it's pretty essential

to be able to do that and maintain yourself

for the distance.