Film Composers Quotes

If I weren't a director, I would want to be a film composer.

With the new technology that keeps entering the media, film composers are constantly being placed in new learning situations. Acknowledging this and realizing that one must keep up, I maintain, nonetheless, that the real creative power is in the mind and heart of the composer.

I don't think a guy that really has no understanding about people, or has no interest in understanding people would make a good film composer.

I love Philip Glass' work, not only as a film composer but also as a musician. The film score work that he does always amazes and shocks me.

One important thing, just being a film composer in general, is to have a great respect for the art that you're working on - a great respect for the film and a great respect for the filmmakers.

If you're the sort of person that likes a job where once you know what you're doing you can keep doing what you're doing, don't ever become a film composer.

There are no black film composers doing the likes of Star Wars, doing the likes of E.T., doing the likes of Jurassic Park. There are none, nor will there ever be one. That ain't about to happen!

John Barry was the first film composer I was aware of. As a teenager I owned several of his Bond soundtracks.

The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.

I have tremendous respect for film composers.

The structural thinking I use in the concert hall is unnecessary to most film projects, and most film composers make better use of the enormous range of pop and other materials and techniques required of them than I probably would, faced with the same challenge.

I always wanted to be a film composer. So very early on I started collecting soundtracks and paying attention to how movie music works. Actually I'd like to have the opportunity to conduct for the rest of my life.

Be persistent. Establishing yourself in this field could easily take years. Rarely will any composer get that one "big break." More often, success is built on hundreds - or thousands - of very small breaks. When I decided that I was definitely going to pursue a career as a film composer, I decided I was going to beat my head against that particular wall until something broke.

I think that being a film composer, someone that gets it and actually applies the music, it allows you to open up a spectrum of feeling. You're now allowed to approach the music from an audio visual perspective.

To spend any time with someone who is among the top five film composers of the last 50 years is pure gold dust. I mean, not necessarily stylistically, because everyone is different in what their music sounds like, but the approach and how to look at a film, how to think about a film, how to decide what you want to do, how to think about characters, how to think about art, how to think about narrative, how to liaise with producers, how to liaise with directors.

It all depends on the directors. Working closely with a director is the main job of a film composer. Interpreting what he perceives as a color, an emotion or mood is very abstract. A director tells you something he wants and then you have to run back...