{"id":710,"date":"2010-10-20T01:29:33","date_gmt":"2010-10-20T05:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=710"},"modified":"2010-12-27T20:38:15","modified_gmt":"2010-12-28T01:38:15","slug":"john-frizzell-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=710","title":{"rendered":"JOHN FRIZZELL (2006)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Exclusive Interviews & Profiles<\/a> \/\u00a0Composers<\/a><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

The Woods <\/em><\/strong>is John Frizzell\u2019s latest horror score, and in this conversational interview, the composer discusses the unique relationship between experimental composition and the sounds that consistently make us uneasy, paranoid, or have us turning on all the lights when watching a horror film.<\/em><\/p>\n

Frizzell\u2019s large-scale orchestral writing led to plum assignments like <\/em>Dante\u2019s Peak <\/em><\/strong>and <\/em>Alien Resurrection <\/em><\/strong>in 1997. He\u2019s also written comedic and mordantly funny music for <\/em>Beavis and Butt-head Do America<\/em><\/strong> and <\/em>Teaching Mrs. Tingle<\/em><\/strong>, respectively, and scored a series of high-profile horror films with sophisticated musical concepts.<\/em><\/p>\n

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer<\/em><\/strong>, <\/em>Thirt3en Ghosts<\/em><\/strong> <\/em>(2001), <\/em>Ghost Ship<\/em><\/strong>,<\/em> and <\/em>Stay Alive <\/em><\/strong>were a mix of sequels, remakes, and bodycount films that harkened back to the prolific and popular slasher films of the late seventies and eighties \u2013 a once-vilified sub-genre that studios were a bit embarrassed to admit were advantageously profitable.<\/em><\/p>\n

All of Frizzell\u2019s horror work has embraced the power of the orchestra with modern electronics \u2013 a major shift when horror films were regarded as cheap and ephemeral box office fodder deserving a quick and simple music score.<\/em><\/p>\n

Perhaps a major influence on bringing sophistication back to the genre was Christopher Young (think <\/em>Hellraiser<\/em><\/strong>, or even <\/em>Pranks<\/em><\/strong>), plus Marco Beltrami\u2019s punchy music for Wes Craven\u2019s teen slasher parody, <\/em>Scream<\/em><\/strong>, although Frizzell feels the genre\u2019s major influences came much earlier.<\/em><\/p>\n

John Frizzell<\/strong>: I think it was probably the re-popularization of genre films altogether, with the studios realizing that horror films were enormously popular. Certainly, I look back to films like\u00a0The Omen <\/strong>as probably the archetype for my generation. Even though I love\u00a0The Exorcist<\/strong>, it\u2019s very, very light on music, and there\u2019s no real original score written for it\u2026 It\u2019s probably the greatest horror film of all-time, but in terms of score, I\u2019d have to come back and say\u00a0The Omen <\/strong>is really the archetype.<\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/em><\/strong>: I guess because there\u2019s been sophisticated examples in the past, they\u2019re regarded as benchmarks for orchestral scores. For the synth scores of the eighties, sometimes they were good, and sometimes they fell into that dilemma where they had to use electronics for budgetary reasons, and tried to mimic an entire orchestra, with ineffective and sometimes cheesy results.<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: Certainly the technology has changed an enormous amount. If you need to mimic an orchestra today, you\u2019ll get a lot closer to it.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: Much closer to it than before.<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>:\u00a0Much closer <\/em>to it than before, but as an example, if you listen to my score for\u00a0Thirt3en Ghosts<\/strong>, it has\u00a0a lot <\/em>of electronics; it\u2019s very, very hybrid. I think\u00a0Ghost Ship <\/strong>leaned probably the most towards orchestra, and this year was\u00a0Stay Alive<\/strong>; we recorded the orchestra, then manipulated it with the computer, and made it electronic.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: It\u2019s funny that, for creating a sense of unease among audiences, one approach that always tends to work so well is where you have a gentle, soothing melodic line in the high registers; then you slowly creep in the lower sonorities, or low brass that rise up in angry clusters.<\/em><\/p>\n

For some reason that always unsettles audiences, and I find it interesting that maybe it\u2019s just something unique to people in general: that we respond well to something that\u2019s initially soothing, which we latch onto, and those lower sounds tend to be the things that always scare us.<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: It\u2019s sort of the sucker punch. It does work well, but it\u2019s not always the lower sounds that scare us. If you think of one of the greatest scary scores of all-time \u2013\u00a0Psycho <\/strong>\u2013 it\u2019s completely filled with surrounding sounds of constant shrill. Maybe higher pitched sounds are more urgent, and lower-pitched sounds are more ominous. Perhaps this goes way, way back to our psyches, in which the growl of an approaching predator functions as a warning, and the shrill sounds of an attacking predator are like a direct assault.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fascinating to think about what part of our evolutionary psyche we\u2019re playing with; why these sounds have the effect and meaning that they have on us. It\u2019s something that I think about a lot: the psychology of music, and what part of our brain we really tap into, like the most primitive emotion that you can recall \u2013 Fear.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: When you mentioned <\/em>Psycho<\/em><\/strong>, probably one of my favorite passages happens when Norman Bates arrives at the hotel room where the shower murder\u2019s taken place. He stands by the doorway, reels in what\u2019s happened, and starts cleaning up the mess. Herrmann just sticks with the strings and produced this eddying effect \u2013 different groups of spiraling, interwoven strings \u2013 and every so often, after he goes very high, he brings in those amazing string bass that swoop up from beneath. It\u2019s an incredible effect, but it\u2019s very simple.<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: Very simple. He was a master of understanding how the human mind responds to patterns, and our sense of pattern recognition by slightly varying that pattern to create intrigue.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: Some time ago I spoke with the music producer on <\/em>Blade 2<\/em><\/strong>, and he said, \u2018We\u2019ve got Marco Beltrami to write a complete orchestral score, and then we basically put it into ProTools, and then manipulate it.\u2019 I guess that\u2019s one of the more popular options today: everything is recorded on a soundstage, and then it\u2019s put on a computer, where it\u2019s carefully tweaked and shaped and altered in order to suit the film \u2013 not just in terms of what scenes have been edited, but also what kind of tonal colours or sound effects you want to add.<\/em><\/p>\n

Do you find that process has become more commonplace?<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: Yeah, but I like being a part of that. That\u2019s the fun part; it\u2019s what you can do with the recordings once you get them into the computer. I really enjoy that part a lot. Obviously, you\u2019re ending up with scores that you can\u2019t go out and perform live, but it\u2019s really exciting what you can do with the manipulation of sounds when compared to the 1950, where you had manipulated tape and primitive electronic music.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s just a whole new world of possibilities now.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: One of the novel aspects of the horror genre is how it\u2019s always been a venue where composers could experiment. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s been as easy in other genres to take principles like <\/em>aleatoric <\/em><\/a>music and actually apply them in such extreme examples, and I wonder if you have any thoughts on why the horror genre has been so welcoming to such ideas?<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: To clarify it, or to even go further with that, it\u2019s like basically you get to write music that no one would ever pay you to write if it wasn\u2019t for horror! Clearly, that has to do with the simple aspects of what is dissonant, and what is dissonant either in our culture or in a physical way. For some reason we have a culture that likes dissonance in drama, so we tend to have more experimentation there; but with tonal music, it\u2019s a more restrictive and more defined area to work.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: Do you consider <\/em>Stay Alive <\/em><\/strong>your most experimental score thus far?<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: I think in terms of experimental,\u00a0Thirt3en Ghosts <\/strong>was as experimental when I did it, and I\u2019m actually writing my most experimental score right now, which is for an action film called\u00a0Primeval<\/strong>, taking place in Burundi. I went to South Africa because I knew I needed very traditional African musicians to play on it, and I spent two weeks foraging around, finding new players with a mobile studio, and recording in places that probably no one could imagine you could record. I came back with an amazing collection of sounds which now I\u2019ll weave into a score.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: When you have concrete ideas, do you record them first, or do you or wait until you start to shape the score? (Themes, styles, etc.)<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: This is the second time that I\u2019ve recorded before I started working to picture. The first time was on\u00a0Stay Alive<\/strong>, where I wrote everything down \u2013 themes, ideas \u2013 for the recording session, and then I started working to picture, but with African music, you can\u2019t write it down, so instead I spent about two months researching, learning, and finding tones and instruments and groups of instruments that I wanted. Then knowing in my head the phrases I wanted, I worked one-on-one with all the players to get this collection of sounds and rhythms. There was just no way to notate it.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: How come there\u2019s no way?<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: It probably could be notated, but there\u2019s different ways African players could read it, because African music doesn\u2019t have a history of notated music.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: It\u2019s music that\u2019s learned and retained by ear?<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: It\u2019s passed on from generation to generation\u2026 and much of African music relies on subtle use of overtones, which I don\u2019t even think you could notate. When you\u2019re dealing with a mouth-bow \u2013 it looks like a small archery bow that you bite on one end and then bow it \u2013 you open and close your mouth to create the shape of the overtones that are happening over the fundamental notes. I think at that point, you\u2019re outside the realm of notation.<\/p>\n

Maybe this is sort of what we were talking about: when you get into other types of music, our western ideas of writing down this note and this beat starts to break down in a certain point of experimentation. I know that in aleatoric music, we had to reinvent a lot of the way things were written down.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: When using electronic effects and synths with orchestra, is there an order that you use when composing?<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: The synthesizers tend to be a very responsive, intuitive area to work. In other words, I might think, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ll enjoy working with this synthesizer,\u2019 and I just start dialing away, leading myself down a path with my knowledge of synthesis, but it\u2019s very intuitive until I get to something that I like.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: I find the way you combine electronic and orchestral sounds is very different from other composers. It\u2019s like an aggregation of electronics that are used as one instrument, but they\u2019re used in a very harsh, dissonant way; almost experimental. You\u2019re actually delving into sound effects, into ambience, but it ultimately functions as a whole instrument.<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: That\u2019s really my intention \u2013 to blur the line and not feel that area where you cross over to what is a sound effect and what is a sort of gray line there. What I\u2019m now enjoying is being able to gray the line as to what is orchestra and what is synth; basically have them meld back and forth into each other.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Primeval<\/strong>, my intention is to take these African sounds and to digitally manipulate them, so that they cross the line back and forth between being electronics sounds and being very pure, un-westernized, traditional African sounds.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: Are directors and producers often open to experimentation, or do you find that they prefer something more traditional and familiar?<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: I think that in the right situations you get a lot of experimentation. Again, we\u2019re talking about the emotions of fear and dread and horror, or even just tension where you end up with the ability to experiment more.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: My last question concerns a film called <\/em>The Woods<\/em><\/strong>, which was scored several years ago \u2013<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: It\u2019s showing up in Montreal \u2018s\u00a0Fantasia 2006<\/strong> for its North American premiere.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: I wonder if you could briefly talk about the score \u2013 how it stylistically differs from your prior scores \u2013 because it\u2019s also a unique horror film.<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: It\u2019s a very sarcastic horror film. It\u2019s got a very wonderful sense of humor to itself. It\u2019s almost a teen angst movie, but it definitely has its horror elements, too. It takes place in the 1960s, and there are several songs by Leslie Gore that are featured in the film. I was in a sense harking back to that era, and beginning with thematic ideas that are very pure and ominous \u2013 but not scary \u2013 and then the score deteriorates progressively as the film becomes more cerebral, more dreamlike, and eventually more aleatoric, and finally just pure cacophony.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: Do you know if there will be an album for the score?<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: I would like there to be. I just got a call from the director, Lucky McKee, who said the film will be showing very soon, so we\u2019ll just see what happens to the film after that. It\u2019s certainly a very interesting and wonderful film with really great subjects and acting, and I hope people get a chance to see it.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: Is this the version that McKee originally edited together, because I understand that there were some changes that were made in the interim.<\/em><\/p>\n

JF<\/strong>: Yeah, there were a lot of changes, but I think Lucky loves this version, which is the final version of the film\u2026 I worked very closely with him on this version, and he\u2019s very proud of it.<\/p>\n

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KQEK.com would like to thank John Frizzell for speaking about his spooky work in the horror genre during a delightful family breakfast at Disneyworld, and Tom Kidd at Costa Communications for facilitating the interview.<\/em><\/p>\n

Additional information on the premiere screening of Lucky McKee\u2019s <\/em>The Woods <\/em><\/strong>is available at the official <\/em>Fantasia 2006 <\/em><\/strong>website<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

To read an interview with composer Jaye Barnes Luckett (Poperratic) regarding her song and vocal contributions to <\/em>The Woods<\/em><\/strong>, click <\/em>HERE<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

All images remain the property of their copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article and interview \u00a9 2006 by Mark R. Hasan<\/em><\/p>\n

Related interviews with John Frizzell: <\/em>Legion<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (2010), <\/em>The Reaping <\/em><\/strong><\/a>(2007), <\/em>Primeval<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (2007)<\/em><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Related external links (MAIN SITE)<\/em>:<\/p>\n

CD: \u00a0Ghost Ship<\/a><\/strong> (2002) — Stay Alive<\/a><\/strong> (2006) —\u00a0 \u00a0Teaching Mrs. Tingle<\/a> <\/strong>(1999) — Thir13en Ghosts<\/a><\/strong> (2001)<\/p>\n

DVD\/Film: \u00a0Primeval <\/a><\/strong>(2007) — Woods, The<\/a><\/strong> (2006)<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Exclusive Interviews & Profiles<\/a> \/\u00a0Composers<\/a><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Exclusive Interviews & Profiles \/\u00a0Composers . The Woods is John Frizzell\u2019s latest horror score, and in this conversational interview, the composer discusses the unique relationship between experimental composition and the sounds that consistently make us uneasy, paranoid, or have us turning on all the lights when watching a horror film. Frizzell\u2019s large-scale orchestral […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,22,30,4212],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-bs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=710"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2009,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710\/revisions\/2009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}