【約翰戴博尼John Debney. Photo Courtesy Costa Communications】
【約翰戴博尼John Debney】簡介：
約翰戴博尼John Debney出生於1956年8月18日，是美國好萊塢相當受到製片與導演喜愛的電影作曲家。2004年為梅爾吉勃遜Mel Gibson導演的【受難記：最後的激情 The Passion of The Christ】所製作的音樂，曾獲得奧斯卡最佳音樂的提名。
其製作的電影原聲帶與作曲音樂有超過百種之多，除本片【絕命連線】之外，包括【萬惡城市】、【蜘蛛人2、3】、【鋼鐵人2】、【101次新年快樂】、【情人節快樂】、【FBI重裝戒備】、【十全大補男】、【麻雀變公主】……，以及今年九月份才要上映的【賈伯斯傳奇 Jobs】……。
另外，他與動畫界的淵源也頗深，早期常幫迪士尼短篇作品製作音樂，其他動畫長片音樂：【瑜珈熊】、【聯合縮小兵】、【變身國王】……等，也讓他常在其他音樂相關獎項中得到提名與獲獎，譬如：動畫界最高榮譽的安妮獎（Annie Awards），及電視界最高榮譽的艾美獎……等等，是一位質量均優的作曲家。
以下是他為【絕命連線】接受訪談的原文：MARCH 14, 2013 BY BRYAN ABRAMS
Incorporating ‘found sound’ into his score for director Brad Anderson’s The Call, Oscar nominated composer John Debney wasn’t afraid to get weird. From slapping the tops of pianos to creating a bizarre engine revving sound for the film’s deranged lunatic, he took risks. The result is a truly unsettling soundscape–from the same man who wrote the score for Elf, no less.
The Call, which opens tomorrow, and stars Oscar winner Halle Berry and Oscar nominated Abigail Breslin, follows a traumatized 911 operator Jordan (Berry) as she tries to rescue Casey (Breslin) from a serial killer Jordan has encountered in the past. Although Debney has scored plenty of family friendly fare, from the aforementioned Elf to the more adult, but decidedly less sociopathic Steve Jobs biopic jOBS, he’s no stranger to writing music for sociopaths. He recently scored the action thriller Alex Cross, in which a homicide detective is pitted against a remorseless serial killer (but really, is there any other kind?)
Debney’s score for The Call is a medley of different sonic textures, from pummeling industrial techno to tranquil piano-and-strings. Like any expert film composer, he tells a parallel story to the script with his score–mirroring the hideous anxiety generated by Jordan’s past trauma with the sadistic killer is mirrored by a slowly swelling sound design. His scores are often multi-discipline affairs, incorporating classical orchestral, electronic/synthetic, and world instruments.
Debney is the youngest recipient of the American Society of Composer, Authors and Publisher’s (ASCAP) prestigious Henry Mancini Career Achievement Award. He’s also had something of a Midas touch, working on gigantic hits such as the aforementioned Elf, Bruce Almighty, The Princess Diaries 1 & 2, Spy Kids 1 & 2, Sin City, and Iron Man 2.
We spoke with Debney about what it takes to be a composer, finding himself working with Bette Midler on his first studio film, and what he has in store for audience members of The Call.
Q：The Credits: Did director Brad Anderson give you any specific sounds he wanted for the score?
A：What Brad described when we first met was a very edgy, electronic, in your face, ‘found-sound,’ as it were, which is a new term that we use for some of these organically created sounds. He wanted something that was out of the ordinary, not necessarily traditional for a lot of the score, and then for certain parts where we get a little more of the emotional back story, something a little more traditional, which I would describe as piano and strings.
We listened to the score. It’s terrifying.
Well that’s what we’re trying to do. And the film is that scary. It’s Silence of the Lambs times ten. It’s very moody, very scary. I think Brad Anderson, by the way, is genius. He’s very different in what he wants as a director. He plays with sound, he plays with the audience a bit. He gives you more of those big thrills. I loved working with him.
Q：How do you make such a variety of instruments and styles, as you do for The Call, from pounding industrial techno to soothing piano-and-string-based interludes to Hollywood style orchestration, cohere?
A：That’s the job. It can be rather daunting when you’re trying to marry all of these different sounds and different textures and different styles. My one overriding idea was to make it something different, something that really isn’t the norm, so what I did was take a lot of mundane sounds, things like knocking on a piano top, which sounds like a xylophone but is really me banging on the top of a piano top, and then tuning it. I was taking these mundane sounds and pitching them up or down, and dramatically filtering them.
Q：And you created specific sounds for specific characters?
A：I use one sound in particular two or three times in the score that highlight, or give you the feeling that the character Michael (Michael Eklund), the crazed serial killer, that’s an industrial electrical motor sound that we wound up like a spring, and you hear it going up and down, like the ramping up of an engine. And we pitched that and tuned that a lot and we used that in a few spots to really jar the audience. So there were a lot of very interesting and different approaches to the way we handled these sounds.
Q：What does it take to become a composer? To acquire the breadth of knowledge necessary to know how to conduct a wide range of musical disciplines including classical orchestral, electronic/synthetic, and world instruments?
A：What I tell students when I go to speak to classes is that they become familiar with every style of music that they can—be it jazz, country, classical, contemporary music, because my opinion and my philosophy is, the more well rounded a musician is, a composer is, the longer one can hopefully do this and have a long career. You want to be able to wear a bunch of different musical stylistic hats. So it takes a while. It’s a process.
Q：Did you come up playing classical music?
A：I’m one of those strange ones that came up playing guitar in rock bands, and then in college made the leap to study classical music and become a classically trained composer. Not all film composers are like that. Some have a bent for a certain type of thing, let’s say a Trent Reznor, who I’m a big fan of. Trent was this big bang guy with Nine Inch Nails and now he’s become this amazing film composer, but I think he sort of does what he does in a unique way. I can’t speak for him, but I’m not sure he has a desire to do a bunch of different stylistic things. I’m different, I like to do a thriller score and then maybe a romantic comedy and just kind of mix it up and be a chameleon.
Q：Aside from people like Trent Reznor, film composer are a pretty unknown bunch.
A：A lot of the public don’t really pay much attention to who’s doing the underscore or who’s doing the score for a film. It would be really wonderful if we had more film music concerts so we could up the awareness level for the public.
Q：As a composer are you strictly called in during post-production, or are you tapped before?
A：If it’s someone I’ve worked with before, usually I would come on early, maybe to read a script, maybe to see a few scenes if you’re lucky enough to go to the set. Normally, however, I come in during the post-production phase, usually in the middle of a director’s cut. A director will have normally six to eight weeks, maybe ten weeks, to form his cut of the film. And that’s usually when I come in. A normal amount of time for me to work is between six to eight weeks. Sometimes you have less if you’re coming in to replace a score.
Q：Do you have a favorite genre to work in? A favorite film you have scored?
A：I will say that I haven’t done a lot of them, but I love when I’m able to work in the area of emotionally dramatic, human stories. I really enjoy that. I did a movie a year or so ago called Dream House (with Daniel Craig, Naomi Watts and Rachel Weisz) that was a really interesting love story, but sort of a ghostly love story, and I really enjoyed that. I like material that lets me explore the sort of deeper realms of the human psyche. I would love to do more dramatic material in general.
Q：You’ve worked on some huge films, such as Iron Man 2 and Hellboy II, what’s that experience like for a composer?
A：Those are great films to do, but they’re very difficult films to do. They’re very intensive, and you’re always dealing in those films with sound effects and visual effects, and sometimes the music has to play a different role. It can be a very, very tough assignment. That’s why I’d love to explore more music driven material.
Q：What is the toughest part of the composer’s job?
A：When you’re a composer you’re sitting in a room with your synthesizers for twelve-to-eighteen hours a day. It’s not as social as some of the other aspects of filmmaking. Sometimes when you’re deeply involved with a film, you really disappear from the world, and that’s hard. It’s hard to sort of get into that world and sometimes it’s hard to get back out of that world into the social realm. I think the hardest part is really digging deep and spending a lot of time alone, trying to create this music.
Q：We spoke with John Ottman recently, and we were discussing content protection. He mentioned how composer fees have gone down, and residuals are affected by piracy. Can you speak to that?
A：It’s a great subject and near and dear to my heart. There’s a tremendous problem, and it’s not just with film composing, but with bands, artists, singer/songwriters…before the advent of the free downloads and piracy downloads, there was a very linear stream for the artist to benefit from their work, and that’s sort of gone away. We’ve spent many years to hone our skills and develop our careers and get to a place where we’re working on films that can provide us a livelihood of some kind, if that goes away, or if that’s greatly diminished, then what’s the incentive for any of us to study for fifteen or twenty years to learn how to write music and then to spend the seven days a week of trying to hone our skills and trying to shop our skills to directors?
Q：Is there a moment from a film you’ve worked on that really stands out?
A：I remember the first time I did a major film for Disney, and that was called Hocus Pocus, we’re coming up on the 20th anniversary of that next year. And it was a really fun movie with Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker. And I got called to do that on a fluke. James Horner, another wonderful composer, was going to do the film but then he had to jump out two weeks before they were going to record the score, so I had to come in. I had two weeks to write about ninety minutes of big orchestral music, and that was my first real studio movie. The first time being on a stage with a ninety-piece orchestra, and raising my baton and hearing what came out…I’ll never forget that.
Q：That sounds wonderful. Any others that stand out?
A：Well, when I first played the theme for Elf for the director, Jon Favreau, and he just fell out his chair, he just loved it.
約翰戴博尼John Debney之介紹（原文出自IMDB）
Academy award nominated John Debney is considered one of the most sought after composers in Hollywood. His unique ability to create memorable work across a variety of genres, as well as his reputation for being remarkably collaborative, have made him the first choice of top level producers and directors. Debney combines his classical training and a strong knowledge of contemporary sounds to easily adapt to any assignment.
Debney’s career seemed almost destined for Hollywood. The son of Disney Studios producer Louis Debney (“Zorro,” “The Mickey Mouse Club”), John grew up in nearby Glendale, Calif. where he began guitar lessons at age six and played in rock bands in college. Debney earned his B.A. degree in Music Composition from the California Institute of Arts (1979). After college, Debney’s professional entry into the business came from television composing legend Mike Post (“Magnum P.I.,” “The Rockford Files,” “Law and Order”) who gave the young composer his start. Debney furthered his hands-on training by working with Hanna-Barbera composer Hoyt Curtin. With this experience under his belt, Debney went on to score television projects as diverse as “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “A Pup Named Scooby-Doo,” and “Sea Quest DSV,” for which he won an Emmy for Best Main Title. In the early 1990’s, Debney began to score films for indie projects. In 1993 he secured his first studio feature, the Disney comedy “Hocus Pocus” starring Bette Midler.
Debney has proven his versatility with films ranging from blockbuster comedies such as “Elf,” “Liar Liar” and “Bruce Almighty,” action adventures like “The Scorpion King” and “Spy Kids (1 & 2)” to dramatic features including “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and “Sin City.” Although Debney had built an industry reputation as a talented composer, it was in 2004 that the rest of the world discovered him. Blending symphonic orchestra, a wide range of world instruments and the beauty of the human voice, Debney composed the landmark score for “The Passion of the Christ.” Strong in his faith, Debney was enticed by the idea of working on a project that held deep, spiritual meaning for him. “The Passion of the Christ” became one of the top ten box-office grossing films of all time, and his emotional score for the film connected with viewers and listeners and debuted on Billboard’s charts at #1 on the Soundtrack and Christian Album charts and #19 on the Billboard Top 200. The record was certified gold by the RIAA and won the Dove award for Best Instrumental Album. The score was nominated for an Oscar in 2005. In July 2005, fresh off his success with “The Passion of the Christ,” he premiered “The Passion of the Christ Symphony” in Rome, Italy. The performance featured an 83-person choir and a 96-piece orchestra, and included special guest vocalist Lisbeth Scott and woodwind soloist Pedro Eustache, plus solo musicians from both the film and the classical worlds. The symphony was a success with the audience erupting into a 15-minute standing ovation catapulting Debney’s success not just in Hollywood but worldwide.
For his most recent scores, Debney has enlisted world-renowned musicians, including violin virtuoso Joshua Bell on Dreamworks’ score for “Dreamer” and trumpet legend Arturo Sandoval on the upcoming OutKast musical “Idlewild.” His upcoming projects include “Sin City (2) & (3)”starring female box-office powerhouses Jessica Alba and Rosario Dawson, “Evan Almighty,” starring Steve Carrel and Morgan Freeman and animated feature “Ant Bully.” In the tradition of classical composers, John Debney enjoys conducting his own work. “A big part of the joy in what I do is that I consider it an honor to stand in front of live musicians and have the opportunity to hear my music played by these talented people.” In addition to conducting some of the world’s greatest orchestras performing his original works, Debney also conducted the Royal Scottish National Orchestra on a series of classic film scores for Varese Sarabande Records. He has been celebrated for incorporating a myriad of musical styles and techniques into his work, from contemporary beats to ancient instrumentation.
Only in his forties, Debney received ASCAP’s prestigious Henry Mancini Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. As director Robert Rodriguez perfectly described it, “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.”