Lalo Schifrin: The Cool Maestro
Check this very cool interview from the LA Weekly with the soundtrack composer Mr Lalo Schifrin (Mission impossible, Bullitt, Enter the dragon and many more). He's still working at 77, but is a bit sceptical of how today's film directors approach film scores...
"One of his biggest worries is what he sees as a cost-cutting industry trend toward "assembled" soundtracks, like the Robbie Robertson–curated score for Scorsese's current thriller, Shutter Island, or even Tarantino's recent recycling of Schifrin's own 1970s work. "I liked Inglourious Basterds," he admits. "It was entertaining, and Tarantino used my music well. But he cannot work with a composer — at least not yet. He needs records, and from those records he extracts what he needs....
... For Schifrin, another industry practice that limits creativity is that of directors or producers handing the composer the "temp tracks" (works under copyright that are used temporarily for editing purposes) and telling him or her to imitate them. "Thus the composer is not a composer anymore — he is just a vehicle to copy the tracks with just enough variation to stay within copyright regulations. He ends up producing a kind of parody," Schifrin states with the contempt of someone for whom all music, from Beethoven and bebop to karate soundtracks, has always been a serious matter.
"I don't want to be the old guy who keeps complaining," he clarifies. "But I once had to tell a director: 'Stop going to the record store. Stop buying music. Let the composer compose.' "
Next he's off to Ireland, where he's conducting a program of suites arranged from his soundtracks, at Dublin's National Concert Hall. Check the article, he's got some great advice for anyone wanting to get into writing soundtracks.
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