All language subtitles for MasterClass Danny Elfman Teaches Music For Film - 17.On Failure

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Here's a word that
you're going to face,

and you're not going
to like this word.

It's the nastiest
word in the business--

failure.

You are going to fail.

You are going to fail
at something small,

or you're going to fail
at something large.

There's very few composers--
well, honest composers--

that I've talked with
that haven't had failures.

Things that they saw as
incredible roadblocks

were suddenly put in the way.

Or failure that left them--
their ego depleted to the point

where they had a hard
time getting going again.

That's part of the territory.

You can be that
amazing lucky one

that has a life that
is without failure.

And to you, I wish you bon
voyage and wonderful journeys.

But to the other 90% of you
who might be watching this,

failure is going to be
part of your existence.

How do you deal with that?

It's hard.

On the small levels, there is
the moment-to-moment failure

of getting turned
down for a job.

Starts there.

Let it go, let it go.

And, like, refocus yourself
and get back going.

There's no other way to do it.

Now, the next level.

You're working as a composer.

Things are going okay.

But your scores are
getting rejected.

You have to find a way
to be okay with it.

You're going to be--

if you're like me,
you get really bitter

and maybe feel angry.

But you've got to
find something to do.

I mean, for me, it was boxing.

I got into boxing very young.

And what the boxing does,
like any form of martial arts,

or anything physical
you could find

is, I work out a lot of
fucking energy of how hard I'd

love to hit that bastard
who just gave me so much

shit on the last score.

And hit, and hit,
and hit, and hit

until I start to feel
a little bit better.

So there are ways to
deal with rejection,

and one great way is just
any physical discipline.

And if it's a physical
discipline that

involves some form of contact--

(CHUCKLES)-- better yet.

But the point is, is
there is another level.

Where, it's just, there's no
way to deal with rejection

and resistance to things
that you can't do anything

more than you're doing.

You just have to be
patient and wait.

And waiting is hard, but
it's just killing you.

But you just have to
work through that.

And then there's the big bomb.

You actually do a whole
score, or you're halfway

through a score,
and you're fired.

Very few of us haven't
had that happen.

And this is where I'm talking
about the rejection that

lays you out.

It just lays you
out, and you have

to take time and get up from
it, because it's an absolute ego

destroyer.

And we all know that
artists get consumed

with their own frustration
and their own anger

and become self-destructive,
and go down

a spiral to just being screwed.

We've all heard about
it, we've read about it,

and we've seen it.

It's like somebody just
gets into a negative vortex

and they can't climb out of it.

And you don't let that happen.

And the way you
don't let that happen

is to somehow take the pain
of what you're feeling.

Whether it be for a small
thing or a big thing,

there's a shitload
of pain that you're

going to learn to live with.

And you learn to put
it into perspective.

Somehow put it into perspective.

Put it into a
longer perspective.

I'll give you an example.

Tim Burton and I were
working too closely

on too many projects
together after "Batman"

went into "Nightmare
Before Christmas," which

was a two year project, which
overlapped "Batman Returns,"

and then went into--

was going into "Ed Wood."

And for our two
personalities, perhaps, we

were banging into
each other too much.

And I was carrying a
lot of frustration.

And "Nightmare Before
Christmas," you know,

started out fun, but in
the end, it was a big slog.

It was a difficult project.

It was, you know, 2--

2 and 1/2 years.

And I felt--
something happened--

it doesn't really matter what
it is, but I felt dissed.

I felt totally dissed.

I was livid.

I said, how can I be treated
like this after all this time?

And I left the movie.

I left "Ed Wood."

And I sat there for two
years, going, [SIGH]

why did I do that?

Um, I feel shitty about the
fact that I had this meltdown.

I had a-- and went nuclear.

I had a meltdown.

I couldn't control it.

I was so angry about
this thing that happened.

And fortunately for
me, two years later,

Tim it started "Mars Attacks,"
and I wasn't on the film.

Somebody else was, and
the producer told me

they were sitting
around in the hotel room

and "Batman Returns" came on
and they were watching it,

and Tim said, Danny should
be scoring this movie.

And the producer said, yeah.

And I got a call back.

And we used to joke
that we'd end up

like Hitchcock and Herrmann,
because Hitchcock and Herrmann

famously had this battle after
which they never spoke again,

ever.

And no contact for the
rest of their lives.

This meltdown they
had over torn curtain.

And, um, we would
joke about that,

and then it kind of happened.

But fortunately, for
us, I got a call saying,

would you ever consider
talking with Tim again?

And I'd been hurting because
I felt like I lost a brother.

And, um, it was like family.

You know, you get
fights with your family

and it hurts, but
there's still your blood,

it's still your family.

And it hurt.

The fight hurt, but the results
of that fight hurt more.

And so I learned
something in those years

after that happened.

And it's like, when I start
feeling really emotional

about something--
and by the way,

we met in a Howard Johnson's,
a coffee shop out in Kansas.

And we just shook hands,
patted each other's backs.

And he says, could
we just start again?

Do we even need to
talk about that?

I said, no.

Okay.

And we just started another
15 years of working together.

So that was lucky.

We missed each other,
and we got back together.

And at that point, I let
my ego go completely.

I realized that
my ego fucked me.

It got the best of me.

I couldn't let it go.

And the reason I
couldn't let it go--

and this happens
to every artist--

is it was too close.

It was this close.

And when you're this close
to any scene or feeling,

you can't really
see what's going on.

It's like a photograph, and
you're looking to close.

You're seeing one part
of the photograph,

and you're obsessing
on that thing.

But that's not
the whole picture.

And when I start
to feel I'm getting

worked up-- because
it's just my nature.

I get worked up, I get
excited, I get emotional,

I get wrapped up into the
moment, I'm impulsive.

Now, that same
impulsiveness, I've

applied to a 35-year career.

And it's that
impulsiveness that's

helped me be spontaneous and get
through moment after a moment.

But that impulsiveness,
emotionally, is a bad thing.

And I tried to do
a visual lesson.

When I'm feeling really angry
about something that happened,

I feel like I was disrespected--
and that's always the thing

that--

that puts me over the line.

Not that they didn't like
me, or I was rejected,

it's like, I felt I was
disrespected in a way

that I shouldn't have been.

And that puts me
over, that's my line.

It's something in my childhood?

Who knows, Dr. Freud.

I just have no idea,
but that's my trigger.

And so what I learned
is try to take whatever

it is that just happened--

now, put it through a
telescope and dial it back,

back, back, back.

Take that picture
and try to get back

to seeing the whole
frame at a distance.

Maybe pull way back and
look at that picture

in a stack of 50 other photos.

And now, I'm getting a bigger
perspective on the whole thing.

And then go, is that worth it?

Is it worth making that point?

Was it worth that
meltdown now that you're

looking at a wider perspective?

Well, the clear answer was no.

It was just a moment.

I should've just gone home
and hit a punching bag,

and did what I had to
do, and cry to my wife,

or whatever I needed to do
at that particular moment.

And then come back with feeling
wounded and raw the next day.

And maybe it would have been
a little weird for a few days.

And then eventually, just
got back to, all right,

I worked through it.

That was what I
should have done,

but that's not what I did.

And so my advice to you, is
when you get to this big moment

and you feel nuclear
is about to happen--

Chernobyl-- we're close
to going Chernobyl.

It's like you pull back, and you
pull back, and you pull back.

Now, it may be that
whatever happened to you,

it still looks big
enough that it's worth--

worth walking from.

It's worth saying, no.

You know, because there
also is three words

that occasionally
you're confronted

with on a film-- on a project.

Life's too short.

And sometimes, it's just,
life's too short for this shit.

You know what?

I got to live the
rest of my life,

and this just ain't worth it.

And sometimes you just
go, you know what?

You go your way and I'll go
mine, we'll try to be friends.

But clearly, we're not
doing this together,

because we're just-- it's
just not working out.

And you may reach that point.

But you may reach, very
likely, the point that I did,

where I go, no, that
actually-- from this distance,

it just looks like a moment.

It looks like a bad moment.

There may have been
a miscommunication.

There may have been-- he may
have been having a bad day.

There's all kinds of reasons
why whatever happened, happened.

And the better thing to
do would have been to,

like, come back in, breathe
deep, and work through it

and move on.

So think about those moments.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

You know, when it comes to
hindsight versus foresight.

Or really, the question
is, what do you

do about making bad decisions?

Which means bad
foresight, because I

think everybody can say
they've got perfect hindsight.

I mean, really?

Who doesn't see their
mistakes behind them?

That long trail of debris
that they're constantly got

attached to their
leg, where they end up

being like one of, like,
"just married" cars

that are trailing cans behind
it, making all this noise.

Because that's how I
feel much of the time,

I'm just trailing behind
a long trail of debris of,

like, why did you do that?

But, um, how do
you deal with it?

Is, well, if you
have great foresight

and you make the
right decisions,

you're not going
to deal with it,

other than the
fact that you kept

making the right decisions.

And good for you.

But for if you make
bad decisions, like--

and I can't be specific
about projects only

to say that things have
come across my path,

and I said, ah, that'll
never turn into anything.

I-- I just-- I don't know,
that just looks like it's going

to be--

and it turned into
something huge.

And I go, wow.

Did I miss call that?

I didn't see that director
as having pulling that off,

based on their prior work.

And, um, you just
gotta live with it.

It's something that still,
I wake up sometimes,

4:00, or 5:00, 6:00
in the morning,

like, you know, with this
kind of clutter in my mind of,

how did I pass up on that?

Oh, my god.

And my wife, who was an
actress, and I frequently just

joke with each other about
the projects we turned down

or let go that
was like the worst

decisions in the
world [LAUGHS] and see

if we could top
each other with who

had made the worst decisions.

You just-- at a certain
point, you go, you know,

I'm going to make decisions,
and a certain percentage

of these decisions are
going to be bad decisions.

And every composer
who's had a long career

does things that
they wished they

could erase from IMDb
when people go and look

at what they've done.

I just don't have the ability
to go, okay, life is long,

this happened, I'm moving
on, everything's fine.

I tend to get
burdened by mistakes.

And they follow me and haunt me.

And they repeat over
and over in my head,

because that's how
my brain works.

You just keep trying to
learn how to let things go.

But it's a bitch, it really is.