Reaching Back to the Classic Film Score: Interview with Joe Kraemer
Film composer Joe Kraemer isn't a household name to moviegoers and probably to some film music aficionados as well. Reading through his biographical notes and resume there are not many huge commercial successes, but it's impressive nonetheless to note the intensity and variety of his works: since 1997, he worked on more than 50 titles including short films, documentaries, television series and feature films of various kinds. The single title that someone probably remembers is The Way of the Gun (2000), a film by Christopher McQuarrie (Academy Award winner for the screenplay of The Usual Suspects) starring Benicio Del Toro, Juliette Lewis and James Caan.
Jack Reacher is the first big film in which Kraemer can finally show his considerable talent to the general audience. Based on a series of crime novels written by Lee Child, the film depicts the exploits of an atypical "problem-solver" named Jack Reacher (performed by a convincing Tom Cruise), a former major of U.S. Army Military Police Corps who finds himself - often reluctantly - involved in situations that requests his help to bring out unfortunate victims against vicious criminals and dangerous thugs. Director Christopher McQuarrie (who also wrote the script) packs a fast-paced film, full of witty dialogue and deft action sequences, openly referring to the style and tone of American action movies of the 1970s. Composer Joe Kraemer - whom McQuarrie wanted on board from the start - conceived a musical score that follows the same stylistic route, calling back to the tradition of classic film music by composers such as David Shire, Jerry Goldsmith, Lalo Schifrin and John Williams. The result is an impressive bold symphonic score, in which Kraemer shows remarkable dramatic instincts, especially for the ability to manage wisely the spotting of the music cues and the density of the orchestral writing. It is result far from obvious, especially considering the current state of Hollywood film music for this kind of films.
We talked to Joe Kraemer and about the genesis of this very nice film score surprise, as well as to find out more about his musical background, his sources of inspiration and his personal views on film music.
ColonneSonore.net: Let's start talking about your musical background. What's your formation? When did you start thinking about becoming a film composer?
Joe Kraemer: I grew up in a small town in upstate New York where grades 7-12 were all in the same building. As a result, in junior high I became friends with a senior named Scott Storm when I was 12. In 1984, Scott graduated and went to the School of Visual Arts in New York City where he met Bryan Singer. After transferring to Emerson College in Boston in 1985, Scott moved back to Albany in 1986 to shoot an independent feature film on super 8 called The Chiming Hour. He asked me to play the lead character. I was 15 years old. It was during filming that I asked Scott what he did for music. He usually used pre-existing music by Tangerine Dream or Peter Gabriel. I had always been a musical child, my father was a musician, and we had a small recording studio at home. So I asked Scott if I could try writing music for the movie, which he was very excited to let me do. As a result, I ended up composing my first feature-length film score at 15.
CS: What were your first experiences in the film music field?
JK: After The Chiming Hour, I did another film written and directed by Scott, in which I acted alongside Bryan Singer, called Whisper From the Mountain. I also did the score. It was during this shoot that I first met Christopher McQuarrie.
Scott Storm and I have collaborated ever since, working on short films Ruin, Smile, From the Log of Captain Quinn and the feature films Burn (1998), Ten 'til Noon (2006) and We Run Sh!t (2012).
With the high school experience of acting and composing behind me, I decided to pursue music at college and enrolled at Berklee College of Music. After graduating in 1993, I moved to Los Angeles and began to build a career.
I did a short film in 1995 called DaVinci and my first feature film a few months later, Final Decision.
During the mid '90s, Chris and I really cemented our friendship with a common love for films and scores from the 1970s, and composers like David Shire, Jerry Fielding, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, John Barry and Elmer Bernstein. When Chris had the opportunity to make a two-hour television pilot for NBC in 1997 (The Underworld), we began our professional collaboration, and it was very much inspired by the music of the composers I just mentioned.
CS: Reading your resume on the IMDb, I noticed that you worked also as a film music editor in the past. This is one of the most obscure roles in film music. Can you describe us what a music editor does and the specifics of this job?
JK: I worked a lot in the mid-90’s as a sound editor, occasionally also editing music, but I generally avoided the music editing job since it often made it more difficult to get composing gigs later. One gets pigeon-holed very quickly in Hollywood and I was always anxious to be perceived as a composer first and foremost. I could do sound editing in isolation and anonymity, but music editing was harder to keep secret.
That being said, it’s a fascinating job. The music editor has several responsibilities on a film: 1) creating a temp score (alongside the picture editor and director); 2) preparing notes for the composer from the spotting session; 3) coordinating various aspects of the preparation, recording and delivery of the score; 4) supervising the mixing of the score into the final film, including making any editorial changes requested by the filmmakers
CS: Let's talk about your relationship with Academy Award winning writer/director Chris McQuarrie. How did your collaboration start?
JK: As I mentioned earlier, Chris and I first met in the summer of 1987, shooting a movie called Whisper From the Mountain. We met again in 1991 when I visited Los Angeles to see Bryan Singer’s short film Lion’s Den screen at the DGA theater in West Hollywood. Finally, when I moved to LA in January of 1994, Chris lived right around the corner from me. Since I didn’t have a car (or a job) yet, Chris would pick me up and take me everywhere with him and we really became close, fast friends. We also discovered a strong kinship in our taste for movies and film scores.
We first collaborated together on a tv pilot Chris wrote and produced called The Underworld, in 1997. Later than year, Chris and Bryan produced a film called Burn, which was directed by Scott Storm and written by Dylan Kussman. The cast included David Hayter, Randall Slavin and Andrea Roth. Then in 1999, Chris began putting together The Way of the Gun.
CS: Yes, The Way of the Gun is a very peculiar movie in the action/noir genre. Your score to that film is quite peculiar and interesting as well, mixing electronics and acoustic instrument in some creative way. What are your recollections about this score?
JK: The score for Gun was very much a trial by fire for Chris and I. Chris is an unorthodox director in many ways, not the least of which is his disdain for temp scores. He hates 'em! The editing process of Gun was under a lot of scrutiny from the studio, and the fact that he was constantly showing the film with no music at all was causing a lot of people a lot of stress.
Chris and I had made a lot of decisions about what the score would be, and what it wouldn't be, before I wrote a note of music, and this turned out to be an obstacle in the long run, as we ended up breaking every rule we've made for ourselves along the way. No guitar? Scratch that. No orchestra? Nix that.
There were three key breakthroughs making that score - the first happened in August of 1999, when I was approached to write a piece of music for a teaser trailer for film. Chris really liked the score to The Professionals and I cooked up a little thirty-second piece that evoked the feeling of that film’s main title.
The second key point was when I finally came up with the music for the credits sequence in Gun. The third breakthrough was when I devised a harmonic chord progression based around the bass melody of the original thirty-second trailer.
As far as the color of the score goes, it was always my intention that it be mostly an orchestral score, but especially in the later scenes of the film involving Robin’s delivery, the location was such a nightmarish setting that I used some electronic textures to help make the music creepy and unsettling.
CS: Now let's talk about Jack Reacher. This is your first big studio picture with a top film actor starring in it. Giving your relationship with Chris, I guess you were assigned to do it from the get-go. However, did you feel any pressure to deliver the goods over the making of the film?
JK: Between Gun and Reacher, I had scored roughly 100 movies, including short films and documentaries, as well as two seasons of a tv show, Femme Fatales. Given the sheer amount of music I’d done in the intervening 12 years, I was not concerned over my ability to deliver a score that Chris would like. The bigger question was whether the people Chris was answerable to would approved the score he and I would present to them. We spent about 8 weeks working on materials to present to Tom Cruise, Don Granger, Dana Goldberg and the people at Paramount, before I was officially hired to do the film. But once the producers heard our stuff, they approved my hiring and it was showtime, as they say.
CS: In this sense, how much important is to build and cement a solid relationship with a director for the overall career of a film composer?
JK: Relationships are the cornerstone of a successful career in Hollywood. Communication is key, and lack of communication can be a real problem. Therefore, a solid relationship with a director that supports a back-and-forth is critical, at least for me. That doesn't mean the director must be able to communicate in MUSICAL terms - in fact, it's often better if they don't. Director's don't need to tell costume designers which kind of stitching to use, and they don't need to tell composers which specific musical elements to use, but if they can speak in DRAMATIC terms, such as mood, color, intensity, that is very helpful.
That said, I don't need to have been friends with a director for 20 years to have a good working relationship with them. I love working with new people and having new experiences as a composer.
CS: Talking about the musical needs of Jack Reacher, how did you and Chris decided the musical approach? The film is very carefully spotted, with several key sequences playing without music (a strong choice in these days!).
JK: I was at a place in my career where I’d done a ton of projects where music was being used to smooth over or prop up weak filmmaking. Either that or it was being used to keep the audience from changing the channel. As a result, I’d developed a lot of skill at what I called “treading water”, or scoring scenes that really shouldn’t be scored at all, with music that keeps the soundtrack alive without detracting from the film itself.
Having survived that gauntlet, it was very refreshing to be able to approach a film the way I thought it should be done, using music only when it was necessary rather than wall-to-wall out of some fear of boring the audience without music. Since the film wasn’t temped, I had a blank slate against which to make my decisions. I basically wrote music for any scene I thought might need it. We did have a spotting session of sorts once I was hired, but I really just did what I wanted and then Chris and I went through and refined the work. I did feel obligated to show Chris something even if he had said he didn’t want music there. It was clear from the beginning the car chase would be unscored, as well as the fist fight outside the bar. Other than that, I brought the music in and out basically where I wanted. Then Chris would come over and I would show him stuff and he would direct me through rewrites that addressed his goals for the score.
For example, I felt that Chris should at least see what music could do for a sequence that builds up to the car chase. So I wrote a piece that played on the building tension between Reacher and Emerson in the driveway of the hotel and then climaxed as Reacher spun out and the chase began. In the end we didn’t use any score there, but Chris was able to be confident in the decision to do so, having seen the sequence with music.
Another example is a scene between Jack and Helen before the car chase. At one point, there was a much stronger romantic element between them, and so we scored this scene in the lobby of her building. We went so far as to record the piece just in case, even though we were fairly sure it wasn’t going to make it to the final dub. And it didn’t. But the piece is on the soundtrack album (the first minute or so of track 9, “Helen in Jeopardy”), and it has some very lovely woodwind performances as well!
Pretty much the unwritten rule was come in late and get out early.
CS: This reminds me a bit of the approach Lalo Schifrin and director Peter Yates used in the film Bullitt. A very tense and exciting piece music that builds up until the car chase starts and then the music leaves spot to real-life sounds. I think this is always a clever choice. Was that film/score in your mind when you and Chris approached it?
JK: I hate to admit it, but I still haven't seen the entire film Bullitt! I've seen sequences from it, I remember, on HBO as a kid, and the Channel 9 movie out of New York on Saturday afternoons, but I've yet to actually sit down and watch the movie from start to finish on Blu-ray. And I have the Blu-ray! But it's still shrink-wrapped. One of these days…
CS: How important is to be able to play with silence as well for the film composer?
JK: I think it is critical! Music can make such an impact when it enters a scene, and obviously the only way to do that is to have silence beforehand. I also generally like to have long tails on my cues so that they sort of fade away rather than ending abruptly. In this way, I try to weave music in and out very carefully so that the audience is as unaware as possible of the entrances and exits. I often cite Patton as a prime example of great spotting - a three and half hour biopic with, what, twenty-eight minutes of score? That’s unheard of today. But it worked!
CS: Back to Jack Reacher, the music is very bold, dark and severe in terms of colours. It seems to me you went for a very thick textural kind of writing that could remind the “old school” Hollywood scoring approach in vogue during the 1970s. There are hints of David Shire (All the President's Men), Lalo Schifrin and even some Jerry Goldsmith. Was this a conscious decision? Or was it more the result of your personal style/preference of writing for movies?
JK: Absolutely a conscious decision, especially in terms of orchestral coloring. I avoided techno loops and too much electronic sound. In the end, there are two prominent electronic textures in the score: a sort of wailing waterphone-type sound and a vaguely choral patch. There was also a rattle and a pulsing electronic drum. Other than that, it was all live orchestral players, all recorded together like they would have done in the ‘70s.
In terms of the actual composition, I’ve gotten a sense over the years of what Chris likes, and I would gravitate towards those types of chords and gestures, such as the low, brassy crescendos. The main musical idea behind the score is a pivot between C# and A, two major chords which somehow in combination create a bit of a minor-key feeling. It’s the half-step between the major third (E#) of the C# chord and the fifth (E natural) of the A major chord that does it, for the musically literate. This tonal ambiguity helps keep the score from being overly villainous while at the same time tempering the heroic nature of the major chords. I’m not sure that is exactly a ’70’s move, but it’s a sound Chris and I both like. There is a cue for a sequence right before Jack Reacher gets attacked in a bathroom that is very ’70’s sounding to me. I definitely listened to some classic John Williams, such as Black Sunday, and Lalo Schifrin (Dirty Harry) to get that sound in my ear.
CS: It's quite unusual to see an action film scored like this nowadays. Did you and Chris consciously decide to avoid the trends (and traps) of current Hollywood action film scoring?
JK: I think we arrived at that through the rewriting process of the score. I scored the first eight minutes of the film long before I did the rest of the movie, working on it while Chris was still refining the cutting. So it was very organic and constantly shifting. Once those eight minutes were at a point where Chris was happy as he was going to get with them (given that they were synth demos), they were presented to the producers and I was officially hired to score the film. At this point, I did an entire pass of the score for the whole film before showing anything more to Chris.
After I finished this pass, Chris and I began to methodically go through the movie scene-by-scene, cue-by-cue, measure-by-measure and make sure he was happy with everything. It was during this stage that we made most of the final choices (ins and outs of the music and the specific notes and chords and orchestral colors). Being able to see the scenes with sampled synth mockups was invaluable to Chris, as it gave him the ability to preview stuff and make changes and try things without having a 90-piece orchestra sitting around eating up the budget. Any decisions to avoid trends and traps were made here, and were done on a cue-by-cue basis rather than as a mandate for the whole score in general. In short, anything was up for grabs going into this phase, and when it was over, the score was virtually finalized compositionally.
CS: This is very interesting, as it shows how important is for the film composer to have the right amount of time and especially the right amount of collaborative feedback from the director during the actual writing process. However I guess this could be a double-edged sword. When you have people interacting and evaluating the music when you're still deep down in the writing process, sometimes you expose yourself and your work to “questionable” judgements or “strange” requests as well... and maybe this could affect the overall musical continuity/structure you may have envisioned... What do you think about it?
JK: Well, it is up to me to be my own arbiter of good taste. So I did strive to keep the score within my own personal bounds of what I wanted to do. And Chris respected that. I always strove to give him options. If he didn't like something, I gave him alternates and we found a solution that worked for both of us. My job as composer is to serve the film, and to give the director what he or she wants. My own personal musical expression is secondary to those needs. A film composer must sublimate his ego to the needs of the film. Just because I feel like writing a three-part invention today doesn't mean it's the right kind of music to compose for the movie I'm working on this week. Because of computers and the power they bring to the composing and previewing process, most of this back-and-forth with the director took place during this phase. For someone like John Williams, who is just about the only pencil-and-paper guy left in the business, that back-and-forth happens much more during the recording sessions. But John Williams has the clout and the history to justify working that way, which can be very expensive.
CS: There's also a strong melodic/thematic identification in this score: a noble theme for horns, which then develops into an arresting motif for strings and brass slowly building to a fortissimo played by the whole orchestra. It looks like you depicted the main character very well, as a kind of a time-bomb slowly waiting to explode...
JK: That’s a very interesting observation. It was pointed out to me that most of the music in Reacher functions as buildup to the big moments, rather than underscore for the big moments themselves. That wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision, but it seems to be a valid assessment of the final score. As far as the theme for Jack Reacher, it was founded on the C#-A pivot chords, then horns playing a melody built on on open fifths and fourths and seconds, much like [the trumpet military tune called] "Taps". This seemed to hit the right note of nobility for Jack, without clobbering you over the head.
CS: I loved the way you went for many low range instruments (bass clarinets, trombones) and also the usage of some “good old tricks” done within the orchestral setting, like the violins playing sul ponticello (i.e.: playing with the bow on the bridge). How much of this was decided with Chris during the spotting? Or was it something you “discovered” during the writing process?
JK: I made a lot of those choices on my own during the solitary writing process. But Chris would hear something he liked and might ask for me to bring it back. An example of this is the use of a wide vibrato in the violins and violas for the murder of Sandy. Even though they aren’t really connected dramatically, Chris wanted me to reprise that texture for the scene where Reacher imagines Charlie meeting Barr at the gun range. So that’s an example of Chris asking for it, after he’d heard it earlier in the score.
CS: What I particularly liked in your score is that it plays and enhances the atmosphere and the colors of the film without throwing away a pure strong musical identity. A lot of contemporary movies are calling for musical scores which go more for ambient or even “non-musical” sound scapes. Sometimes this is a good thing, but it seems to me this is happening too much at the expense of a greater musical artistry (i.e. sound designers replacing proper composers, etc.). What's your stance about this?
JK: I am not a purist. I think all types of scores have their place in cinema, just as there are different types of movies. Tron: Legacy absolutely works with its electronic score. Traffic was a really hypnotic use of more ambient music. The Fabulous Baker Boys had to be a jazz-based score. But certain movies cry out for an orchestra, and being a huge fan of orchestral scores, I love having the opportunity to do them.
Speaking of musical identity, I do find it frustrating when a score feels either like a clone of the temp or has no identity at all. I do believe music can add to an audience’s understanding and appreciation of a film - I almost regard a score as a sort of commentary track running under the movie. I look at my job as composer as teaching the audience the language of that commentary by writing themes that are memorable but not intrusive. In my favorite scores, you can follow the movie just by listening to the soundtrack album. I am always striving to give the director what he or she wants, and if he or she wants wall-to-wall, ambient music that I am happy to oblige, but when a director like Chris comes along who wants a score with a strong musical spine, it’s a real treat!
CS: The score was recorded with the amazing LA session players. You also used the great Bruce Botnick as a recording engineer. How important was to achieve the right sound during the recording process?
JK: The music editor on this film, John Finklea, rightly asserted that this score would sink or swim based on the performances. That notion, combined with Tom Cruise’s enthusiasm for the score once he heard the demos, ensured that we had the resources available to us to do this thing right. Having all the players I’d been listening to my whole life on John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith scores, recorded by Jerry’s main engineer, recording on John’s favorite sound stage, really stacked the deck in my favor, and is the key to why the score sounds the way it does. Going and back and hearing the synth demos now, it’s striking how much the orchestra and Bruce brought to the music!
Another big factor was having the entire orchestra play at once, rather than recording them in sections. Believe it or not, that is becoming more and more rare these days, which is a real shame, because you get so much more emotion and musicality out of the orchestra when they are playing together.
CS: I agree wholeheartedly. I guess some people really aren't aware of the sheer power of a symphony orchestra playing together and do not realize how much real “humanity” and pure emotion the live playing could add to the motion picture itself. That's not to make “purist” or even reactionary statements, but I feel the lack of classical musical culture/knowledge (in the whole world, not just here or there) is something that plays a key role in these matters. For example, Hitchcock was known to be a very tough director with his own composers, but he really had deep knowledge of music itself (despite what some people say). Or Kubrick--he was a classical music buff and always understood how a piece of music should relate with pictures. We're talking about geniuses here and I'm not saying everyone should be at that level or that every filmmaker must be a music professor... but this is something that influences the sound and feel of today's movies. What do you think about it?
JK: The worst kind of director is the one who thinks he's a musical person but isn't - "This scene takes place in France, so I'd like to hear French Horns", that sort of thing. As I said earlier, I think the real strength is when a director can speak in dramatic terms about what is or isn't working for him or her in a given situation. It can be helpful if they understand the difference between major and minor, but it isn't critical. It's more helpful if they understand they want a dark score with strong themes, or a light score with more ambient sound, or a happy score that counterpoints the sadness in a given scene, things like that.
CS: Do you think purely symphonic orchestral scores still have future in big Hollywood studio films?
JK: Absolutely. With more Star Wars movies on the horizon, the new wave of superhero films, and the continuing tradition of sweeping historical dramas, I cannot imagine symphonic scores disappearing completely. That being said, the method of making these scores is changing, from the fact that most of us are composing them on computers rather with pencil and paper to the practice of recording the orchestra in sections rather than all at once.
CS: However, as we said before, don't you think the method can also influence the end result? Take this a kind of “provocative” question (I know very well you MUST work with computers because you have to preview and demo everything): Would a film composer force him/herself to write a score from start to end only with pencil and paper, maybe just to learn another discipline and discover something new?
JK: I imagine composers must undertake the pencil-and-paper approach at some point in their lives, maybe for a concert work, but it just isn't practical in film music in this day and age without a the support of a director, producers, and a studio that understands the schedule and expense it incurs. I see that workflow being something one would do to "get back to one's roots" on a personal project not constrained by financial limits or short schedules. In terms of influencing the end result? Does a novel turn out differently if it's written by hand rather than typed on a typewriter or written in a word processor? There may be subtle differences, but I think you get the same overall result.
CS: What were your favorite works of your peers last year? 2012 has been quite a good year for film music in my opinion.
JK: I really liked the main title to Prometheus a lot, which I gather was the work of Harry Gregson-Williams. I thought the score to the whole film overall was strong, but that opening really worked especially well for me. I quite like what Murray Gold is doing on Doctor Who for BBC, I think it’s very cinematic scoring for television. Amazing Spider-Man was effective, and I quite enjoyed The Hobbit.
CS: Do you have film composers you look upon as role models?
JK: First and foremost is John Williams. I’ve studied his work more than any other composer. In my downtime between gigs, I pore over the printed scores to his films and mock them up in my studio. This helps me to both study the composition and orchestration, and also to get practice at making my samples sound as real as possible. I also greatly admire Jerry Goldsmith, David Shire, John Barry, and Elmer Bernstein. I cannot say that I have ever consciously meant to do so, but I have often found my own music in hindsight to sound like Howard Shore, and I’m still not sure why that is!
CS: All the people you mentioned are superb, genius composers. But what I find amazing about John Williams is that he has become a sort of “Beethoven of film music”. I mean, every single film composer I talk with, at some point mentions him as someone to look upon and talk about the sheer brilliance of his compositional chops and his pitch-perfect dramatic instincts, not to say about his apparent ease at writing memorable themes of course. And it's even more amazing to see he's still with us, alive and kickin', constanty churning out brilliant stuff like War Horse and Tintin at 80 years old. What is that makes him so special for you? And since you mentioned the upcoming new Star Wars films, do you think he should score them?
JK: I'm sure a major factor is the score to Star Wars in 1977, and Superman shortly after. I was six years old I first saw Star Wars and it had a profound effect on me. The next seven years saw phenomenal work pour forth from John Williams: Close Encounters, Superman, Empire Strikes back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, not to mention the lesser known works like Heartbeeps, The Fury, Dracula, and Monsignor. Up until the 90's, the top ten movies were almost all scored by Williams. Beyond that, he is special to me because he maintains a quality in his work that is exceptional. He doesn't take on too many projects at once, and he is so intelligent in his decisions, from choice of film to thematic design and development to spotting to orchestration and recording. There are so many pitfalls everyone faces working on a movie, and he seems to consistently avoid them, even when others on the film are stumbling. And yes, I hope he does score the new Star Wars films. I can't imagine anyone else doing anywhere near as good a job on them... except maybe me! (laughs)
CS: Last question: what is film music according to Joe Kraemer?
JK: It’s an art form, it’s a craft, it’s contributing to the overall film in the way I’m best able.
CS: Joe, thank you very much for this conversation!
JK: Thank you!
Visit the official website of Joe Kraemer at www.joekraemer.com
Jack Reacher Soundtrack Album available at La-La Land Records: http://www.lalalandrecords.com/JackReacher.html