Bruce Broughton worked in many styles and eclectic venues, but is best known for his film scores to "Silverado", "Tombstone", "Lost in Space", his television themes to "JAG", "Dinosaurs" and "Tiny Toon Adventures" and countless episodes of TV series such as "Dallas", "Quincy" and "Hawaii Five-O". He has been nominated for an Oscar, a Grammy and 22 Emmys, having won the latter award a record 10 times. His score for "Heart Of Darkness" was the first orchestral score composed for a video game. An accomplished composer of concert music, Broughton has conducted and recorded numerous original works. As a conductor, his recordings of Miklós Rózsa's "Ivanhoe" and "Julius Caesar" for Intrada records, performed by the Sinfonia of London shortly before the composer's death, have received rave reviews, as has his recording of Bernard Herrmann's riveting score for "Jason and the Argonauts". A few weeks ago the composer agreed to answer my questions. It is my pleasure to invite all readers of MuzykaFilmowa.pl to enjoy an exclusive interview with Bruce Broughton.

Łukasz Waligórski: How did it start? Why did you decide to be a composer? Did you want to score movies from the beginning?

Bruce Broughton: I never wanted to be a composer. When I was a boy I wanted to be an animator, but my family was tuned to music, not art, and so I finally gave up the ambition. Many years later, after having met some animators at Disney, I’m glad I did what I did. I once told Friz Freling, the classic Warner Bros. cartoon director my story, and he said, "You made the right choice." So I majored in composition at the University of Southern California. I had been playing the piano since I was about 6 and was good enough to play most of what I could read, which was just about anything. So instead of studying more piano I tried composition, since I didn’t know too much about that. I had begun composing on a very limited basis when I was about 12, although the first piece I ever composed was a Christmas carol written when I was about five years old called "Go up Jesus, Come down, baby". I think it had six lines and five spaces. I was studying orchestration books when I was 14 and was reading scores at that time. Eventually, after finishing college, I had to admit I was a composer, although it felt very risky.

I went into the movies because I thought it was the best medium for me to write music that was expressive and made people feel something. As a kid, I was never aware of music in a movie. As an adult, I try not to forget the general public’s non-awareness of the music.

Could you tell us about your first film score? Was it a challenge for you to compose for a movie for the first time?

My first writing for film was a couple of cues for a TV show called "Men at Law", when I worked on staff at CBS Television. From there, I began writing some cues for "Hawaii Five-O" and "Gunsmoke", and eventually did an entire episode of "Hawaii Five-O", which got an Emmy nomination. My first credit, however, was on an episode of "Gunsmoke". I got a lot of practice by writing cues, and even more by tracking music into the shows that CBS produced.

Your first major film score was "Silverado" which brought you an Oscar nomination. What a wonderful main theme! What was your approach to this movie, and did the Oscar nomination somehow change your life?

I had done two movies before "Silverado" ("The Prodigal" and "Ice Pirates"), but I had done a lot of television, including two western series ("Gunsmoke" and "How the West Was Won") and some shows that were 19th century Americana ("The Blue and the Gray"). I was very familiar with the style and in some respects was disappointed that it was one I knew so well. However, I had never had the chance to do a major feature, so my disappointment was very, very brief. I was more excited than anything else and took the job enthusiastically.

Larry Kasdan, the director, told me that he wanted a "traditional Hollywood ‘big western’" score, and that immediately made me think of two composers: Jerome Moross, who pretty much invented the style, and Elmer Bernstein, who continued where Moross left off. The rest was up to me. The score had two major elements in it that I tried to point up. The first was that it was very powerful; the good guys were very, very good and the bad guys were very, very bad. The second was that it was full of feeling, relying more on family and the bonds of friendship than on the traditional romance elements. It was also very energetic and positive. So the score has those elements, which are positive, joyous, emotionally rich, dramatically strong. Larry referred to the style as being "operatic," as in the old term for a western: "horse opera". After Silverado was released, I became considered a film composer.

Many years after "Silverado" you scored "Tombstone" – another western. What are your feelings about differences between these two scores?

The two pictures are similar only in that they’re both westerns. When I first saw "Tombstone", it had been tracked with cues from "Silverado". It was awful; and worse than that, it made Tombstone look silly. Silverado is a very uplifting film, very positive with good guys and bad guys. But Tombstone is very dark and melodramatic, and even the good guys aren’t that good. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that Silverado is a film you can think about; whereas Tombstone is a film you just watch and enjoy. I like them both, but I find the music to be very different.

Your wonderful score for Barry Levinson's "Young Sherlock Holmes," earned a Grammy nomination. It’s very classically styled – one can hear even Carl Orff there. Could you tell about your approach to this movie, musical inspirations or quotes?

By comparison with Silverado, which is very straightforward and built for external power (big guys with guns), Young Sherlock Holmes is very internal, about a very clever boy and his friends. The boy thinks a lot and doesn’t shoot anyone. Instead, he fences for sport, but mostly he thinks, deduces and deliberates. The music in this film is very complicated and busy. It plays the inside of Sherlock Holmes. Stylistically it’s all over the place, just as the film is, which quickly moves from the real world of Edwardian England, albeit with social make-believe (the Rametep plot), to the interior world of drug hallucinations and grotesque fantasy. It contains 19th Elgarian gestures as well as 20th century compositional techniques, and there are stylistic nods to Penderecki, Lutoslawski, Stravinsky and Orff, among others. After all, it’s a movie.

When I listened to "Lost In Space" I felt like the film was some kind of space-western. There are elements in your music that recall works like "Silverado". Was it your idea to give such an unusual climate to the movie? Could you describe the process of scoring this movie?

People have often compared science fiction films with westerns, the best known being Star Wars. I didn’t intentionally try to make this association with Lost In Space. I was simply trying to get done. There was only about two-and-a-half weeks to write the score, so I was busy just getting things down on paper! But when you’re in a spaceship that’s headed for the sun, or you’re fighting massive robots or alien creatures (spiders, in this case) and dealing with monsters and time travel, it’s hard not to make some big dramatic statements, musically. In this way, it might remind people of the drama in Silverado, although I don’t find any other resemblance myself. Lost in Space is much more lyrical than Silverado, for one thing. It was a story about a family and their adventures. Much of the drama had to do with the relationship between the father and the son, as well as the father’s desire to protect and be responsible for the safety of his family.

When you’re scoring a movie, what comes first? Is composing for you an intellectual or emotional process?

The first question I always ask myself is: what do I feel and what does that feeling sound like? From there I try to find the notes that will express those feelings and ideas. Finding the notes is an emotional process; dealing with the specifics of musical and dramatic technique, such as timing and clarity in story-telling, are all part of an intellectual process.

For me as a European your style of composing is very American – epic, patriotic, dynamic, with lots of brass. Did you have any role models early on stage of your education, like Aaron Copland or Leonard Bernstein?

Several years ago I was working in London with an English director. We were working on a period drama, an adventure movie, and he said, "Oh, it will be great to have an American score again." Knowing that he had also worked with Elmer Bernstein, I asked him what "an American score" was to him. Was it energetic and dramatically over-the-top? "Absolutely!" he said.

When I think of "American music" I think of energy, and of course composers like Copland, Bernstein and Gershwin. But I also think of Stephen Foster and Irving Berlin. Four of these five names came from immigrant families (Berlin was an actual immigrant, born in Russia). As such, they brought a lot with them that eventually became know as "American," a nation of mixed societies, customs and tastes. The country itself, especially in the west, where I’m from, is very dramatic visually. I identify with all of this. The American "personality" is big; it’s energetic; it’s not reticent or shy, sometimes to a fault. I respond to all of these things, as well as to other music from my personal background, which is based in English hymns, folk song and music hall ditties. I also have a background in brass. Although I’m essentially a pianist, I was a horn player, as well. But now I’m married to a violinist, so I’m expanding my perspective.

"JAG" was very popular here in Poland, and everybody recognizes your music from the opening sequence. I just love it! Could you tell something about composing this particular cue – inspirations, alternative versions? In your career you composed several openings like this ("Dallas" also well known in Poland). What is the most important thing in writing such a short but recognizable piece of music? Does it require a different technique of composing?

First of all, I didn’t composer the theme to "Dallas". My friend Jerry Immel composed that. I worked on the series, writing scores to the episodes. My best-known television themes are "JAG", "Dinosaurs" and "Tiny Toon Adventures", all very different from each other. The producer for "JAG" wanted something like Silverado, so there’s a little resemblance to that earlier theme. Having said that, the series "JAG" was about the military, and military music is generally band music, stirring and patriotic. It’s the sort of music that relies upon marches, the music that tries to get tired soldiers back on their feet.

In writing a television theme, you’re writing just that – a theme. It’s usually a tune that’s recognizable enough to identify the show when it comes on. The music, once heard, is forever associated with the TV show or movie. For instance, you couldn’t play the theme to "JAG" on anything but a military show for it to make any sense at all; it’s simply too well known as a military theme. So what the composer tries to do is to encapsulate the series into one basic musical idea. The theme to "Tiny Toon Adventures" is a silly, rowdy song, something that kids would (and do) sing. But the show is pretty much the same: it’s high energy silliness for kids.

You were the head of the team scoring "Tiny Toons" for a while. What was your role in it? Was it difficult to preserve Carl Stalling’s style of scoring for the cartoons?

I had become aware of Carl Stalling’s music in the old Warner Bros. cartoons only a few years earlier and had become a great fan of what he did. Shortly after my "discovery," he and his music became famous. "Tiny Toon Adventures" was a joint, high profile production between Steven Spielberg and Warner Bros. The characters were modeled on the original characters, such as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, but appeared in Tiny Toons as kid. There were 100 episodes to score and I was asked to be the "supervising composer." My job was to write the theme and as many episodes as I could in Carl Stalling’s style, and then to find and hire other composers to do the same. We ended up with around 27 different composers who worked on the series. Steven would often call me after hearing one of the scores to let me know what he thought of it. He was a huge fan.

The trick for me was to find composers who could write in this style. Not everyone was successful at doing the Stalling style, but some of them, particularly Richard Stone, who went on to do "Animaniacs", were very good at the style. There were many well-known feature composers who contributed some really fine work, such as John Debney, Laurence Rosenthal, Fred Steiner, Joel McNeely and William Ross. Even Morton Stevens, who wrote the "Hawaii Five-O" theme, contributed several scores. It was a great deal of fun, especially when it came time to record the scores. The musicians were often on the edge of their seats playing all of the runs and effects required in this very unique style of music.

Over the years you have scored many different kinds of movies. Which genre was your favorite, which was most demanding, and which have you never scored?

I’ve been told that I’ve scored many "cult" films, like "Ice Pirates" or "Monster Squad", although that never occurred to me. Many of my films had simply become popular favorites through the years. I scored many children’s films, like "The Rescuers Down Under" and "Homeward Bound", something that again was unintentional. Of all the films that I thought were the most fun, the animated films and the scores for theme parks stand out the most, partly because these two types generally have the most extended boundaries creatively and musically. I think I’ve done a little of everything, although not too many serious dramas. I’ve done mostly westerns, Americana, children’s films, comedies and fantasies. I’ve done much more dramatic writing while working in television, where the range of subject matter is generally broader.

"Heart Of Darkness" was your first orchestral score composed for a video game. How different is writing for a video game from a movie? Did you have to somehow adjust your way of working to this assignment?

"Heart of Darkness" was the first video game with an orchestral score, so in that sense it was groundbreaking. But as a game, what I had to do at that time was not like what game composers have to do at the present. "Heart of Darkness" was for me essentially a 30-minute animated story, interspersed by a game that would have to be played before the next scene could be watched. It was essentially an animated film to be scored. It was a lot of fun to do.

You’re composer but also a conductor. You recorded Miklós Rózsa's "Ivanhoe" and "Julius Caesar" for Intrada records and also Bernard Herrmann's riveting score for "Jason and the Argonauts". How do you prepare for such assignments?

I didn’t know the music to any of these scores until I was asked by Intrada to conduct them. I listened to the original recordings, as much as they were available, and then simply studied the musical scores. I conducted them based upon the music rather than on how it had been originally recorded in the film. I trusted and relied upon Doug Fake to let me know whether my tempos were consistent with the original or not. But in general, we went for a performance of the music as it existed in itself.

I’m sure you also conduct all your recordings. Not many composers do that. What are your feelings about benefits of such multitasking?

The benefits of conducting your own score are entirely musical. You can interact with the players immediately. You can talk about phrasing, style and performance. You can control balance. On the other hand, the benefits of having someone else conduct your score is that you as the composer can be in the recording booth working with the sound as it is going to appear in the film. And you can talk with the director or with other production personnel who have an enormous interest and investment in your work on their film, answering questions and coming up with solutions before a small issue becomes a big problem.

For that matter, I also do my own orchestration, since I know what I want to hear. I’ve devised a short score system which copyists can read from. However, I do it in pencil. I haven’t been able to figure out how to compose fast enough on the computer. If I’m doing a synth score, I don’t bother writing it out at all.

I have an impression that film music in Hollywood is shrinking. I mean, there are less full orchestral scores than before. Composers seem to be forced to write music for smaller ensembles or simply use samples or electronics. Even legendary scoring stages are closed. Have you experienced that in your work? Have you ever use samples or electronics in your music?

I think that every composer working in film today has used samples and electronics in his or her scores. It’s an accepted part of the new orchestra. You hear it in concert music, as well. Whether they have programmed or mixed the electronics themselves as part of the compositional process is another question, however. Most composers, including myself, have become pretty adept at working with electronics. If nothing else, it has become a necessity to show the director or the studio the work-in-progress via electronic "mock-ups". The advance into digital technology has changed the way films are being made, and the changes affect many different branches of work, but especially directing, editing, special effects, cinematography, as well as sound design, music production and recording.

The closing of the major recording stages is an omen of things-to-come. As the larger stages disappear, smaller recording stages are being built, some by composers themselves. In these smaller stages one can layer the orchestra in sections instead of assembling the entire group together for one great massed performance. Layering provides the filmmakers with choices during the final mix as they combine sound effects (or sound design) with the score. Instead of making a complete stereo recording, the music is recorded onto "stems," specific groupings of instruments and sounds, so that the musical elements can be dropped or manipulated to create a unique sound environment for the filmmaker’s "vision." It’s definitely not like the world that Erich Korngold walked into when he arrived in Hollywood.

Are you familiar with Polish film music composers?

The Polish film composer I know the best is my friend Jan Kaczmarek, whom I see on occasion here in Hollywood. But I know also a little about the work of Zbigniew Preisner and Wojciech Kilar from scores I have seen over the years.

What are your future plans? On which projects are you working now?

My plan as a composer is to keep composing, and in that area I have many interests outside of film. But having said that, I am beginning an independent historical feature at the moment and have a major feature to work on in the spring. There’s a third movie that should also happen go into production shortly. So I’m expecting a lot of movie work over the next few months. I’ve never been one to look too far ahead, so I don’t know what’s happening after that. Outside of the movies, I have three commissions to complete, one of which I’m working on now, a piece for symphonic band. I have always tried to write concert music when I did not have a commercial project to do. I find it necessary to keep composing, whatever the opportunity. It’s a way of staying fresh. Besides, one medium of music helps feed the other.

Thanks for all answers and your time! Good luck!

Author: Łukasz Waligórski