Interview: Composer Nathan Johnson

This is impossibly late, but somehow I never got around to posting it anywhere when I conducted it last year (around the time of the film's release). I hope you enjoy it - I've liked everything I've heard from this guy to date, and look forward to continuing to follow his career.

Clark Douglas: We're joined by composer Nathan Johnson. His previous work includes Brick and The Brothers Bloom, and his latest effort is Looper, a sci-fi thriller directed by Rian Johnson and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt and Bruce Willis. Nathan, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today.

Nathan Johnson: Yeah, definitely, thanks for having me.

CD: Well, this is your third collaboration with your cousin Rian Johnson. I know that every director/composer relationship is different, so I wanted to ask you what your process is like when the two of you begin determining what sort of musical sound is required for a movie.

NJ: It's really fun with Rian. The one great thing about working with Rian is that I come onboard really, really early in the process, which is actually really rare. The composer is usually brought on at the last minute. Yeah, so we start really early talking back and forth about what the world's going to feel like; the sounds that Rian has been thinking about. A lot of times he'll give me references sound-wise; even other composers or musicians and we kind of just dial it back and forth from there.

CD: As you said, composers are generally brought on pretty late in the process, but since you get such an early start on it... do you ever start writing before you've had a chance to see any of the film, or do you prefer to wait until you've seen some footage?

NJ: Yeah, yeah, no, I actually do start writing early sometimes. I will have read the script a number of times. For instance, with The Brothers Bloom I was out in Serbia while they were filming it; hanging out on set. But then, during the day back at my hotel room I'd be working on themes and showing those to Rian. So with Bloom, we actually established the main melodic themes really early on before they even had a rough edit of the film.

CD: Now that's really interesting - you get the opportunity to spend some time on set, and that's something most composers don't get to experience on a regular basis. Does that help you in any significant way during the writing process?

NJ: Yeah! It's really nice to just kind of steep in the feel of the world. It's also really great to see the performances live as they're happening, to see the sets, to be on location... I think it's sort of a luxury, but the more you can put that into your musical world, the better.

CD: There are quite a few distinctive sounds present in this score. I understand you essentially created some new instruments for this movie. Can you tell us about some of the musical experiments you've conducted?

NJ: Yeah, one of the first things Rian and I talked about for Looper was, "How can we create a score for a big action movie without going down some of those well-trodden roads?" So we talked about the idea of gathering field recordings. I actually went down to New Orleans where they were shooting the movie, and I just wandered around the city with a field recorder and a pair of headphones recording anything that I thought was interesting. Some of that was on set; recording mechanical things around the set, but then also wandering around the city recording industrial fans... I did a lot of stuff with the treadmill in our hotel. Then we took all of those sounds, manipulated them, sped them up, slowed them down and spread them across the keyboard so we could actually create the core fabric of the score from these organic; real-world elements.

CD: Those sounds seem to play a particularly dominant role early in the score, but as it moves along you seem to transition into more traditionally musical material.

NJ: Yeah, and it kind of parallels the feel of the movie. A lot of the movie happens on a farm as we go on; that sort of dominates during the second half of the movie. The first sound you hear - the first cue - doesn't have any real instruments in it. It's all stuff that we created from the field recordings. That sort of develops and by the time you get to the very last cue, the last thing you hear is a live celesta being played alone in a room. So it kind of moves along and eventually strips everything back; which sort of operates in parallel with the emotional core of what's going on.

CD: I'm curious, what's the total size of the ensemble? Because at certain points, it does sound like a very big score but for the most part has a more intimate feel than many traditional thriller scores do.

NJ: We kind of split it half and half. The main fabric - what we started with - was built from these created things, but then we worked with the Magic Magic Orchestra (which is this great modular orchestra in San Francisco) and we worked with 14 amazing string players, 3 horns. We had them play like normal string and horn parts, but also had them create textures and atmospherics. There's piano and celesta, and another violinist that I worked with just to create sounds from his violin that I could use atmospherically. Then there's percussion and drums... so it's fairly small, probably twenty-five pieces when you add everyone up. But it's definitely approaching it in a constructed way rather than just a purely capturing than a room approach.

CD: It does seem you've got a pretty diverse array of ways to capture this music. As you say, not just putting a bunch of musicians together in a room, playing and recording and then you're done - there's a lot of additional production involved in an effort like this.

NJ: Yep. Yeah, definitely.

CD: When you begin a project, do you tend to start with your thematic material and then work from there, or do you prefer to figure out the general tone before you start hammering out themes?

NJ: Yeah, I almost always start thematically, but Looper was the first time that I didn't start thematically at all. It was completely tonal and atmospheric on Looper. Rian actually sent me two scenes when we were really early in the editing process, and said, "Hey, we're having trouble finding temp music as placeholder stuff for these. Do you want to just dive in and see what you come up with for this?" So I did that, but that actually felt very much like going down a dark, unfamiliar path for me. Usually, I have the whole thematic arc sketched out and all the different melodic themes, but I knew that this was gonna be so different. I kind of just dove in with those. The demo sketches that I made for those two scenes are almost without change exactly what you hear in the final cut. Rian listened to them and said, "This is it. This is what Looper sounds like; you've found it. This is what we start from."

CD: Is this the first time that you've started on a feature without having some sort of temp track in place to reference at any point?

NJ: Well, those were only a couple of scenes that didn't have temp music. There was temp music for everything else. But yeah, so far all of the features I've done have started with temp music.

CD: One of the interesting things about this score - as we talked about a little earlier - is that while there are those large parts, it often feels more intimate and personal than typical scores along these lines. Was there ever any pressure from the studio or others to create a bigger, more traditional action score or were you free to do whatever you wanted to do?

NJ: Rian does a good job of - if there is that sort of pressure - of insulating his team from it. So if there was, I wasn't that aware of it. We were up in Toronto recently for the premiere, and someone asked me if I felt nervous. At that point, I actually truly didn't feel nervous; it was just excitement. For me, when I'm working on something like this, the director is the only person I'm concerned with satisfying. I get nervous when I'm sending music to the director, and once it feels to them like it's the right tone and like it's telling the story that they're wanting to tell... that's the main thing I care about, helping them advance their vision.

CD: So you're writing music for an audience of one, essentially?

NJ: Yeah! I know that theoretically it's more than that, but I really feel like - even in a way that's different from writing music for my own projects - this is all about bringing one director's vision to the screen.

CD: How much do you think about or worry about creating music which is a satisfying experience on album divorced from the movie? Is that something that enters your mind, or are you just focused on creating something which is effective when married to the images in the film?

NJ: I mean, I definitely think about it. You kind of want to not think about it too much. The thing is, I know there's going to be a soundtrack album. The soundtrack album is kind of a secondary thing, but it crosses my mind. One of the things we did on Looper is once we had mixed the movie, we took a break and came back to revisit everything. I kind of stitched things together and expanded other things so that it worked a little better as an album that you could sit down and listen to; so there weren't twenty thirty-second cues on the record.

CD: Are there any film composers past or present who have influenced you or been a source of inspiration for you?

NJ: Yeah, yeah, quite a few! I mean, Morricone and Nino Rota are two of my favorite classical-type composers. Obviously some of the big boys like John Williams. I grew up loving Star Wars as a kid, and John Williams was kind of my first exposure to film music where I was really aware of what was happening and how into it I was. There are lots of guys working right now, too... I really enjoy some of the stuff the guys who come from more of a songwriting or band background are doing. Obviously, Jonny Greenwood; I'm a big Radiohead fan, anyway. Jon Brion. I thought Trent Reznor's scores for The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo were really fantastic, as well.

CD: You've mentioned that you've written music outside the film music world - was film music always the dream, or just sort of something you slipped into?

NJ: No, I actually came from a performing/songwriting/producing/band background. When Rian was doing Brick, I had just finished this concept narrative record with my band. It told a story and had a graphic novella that went alongside it that my brother had illustrated. Rian actually heard that and put two and two together in his head and asked if I'd be interested in taking a stab at doing the music for Brick. I had never thought about the idea of being a film composer. I was obsessed with the idea of narrative storytelling and I grew up just loving movies and music, so looking back I can see the thread, but it wasn't something I dreamed of being when I was a kid.

CD: Just over the course of the three feature films you've score for your cousin, you've the opportunity to explore a pretty wide range of sounds and styles...

NJ: Yeah (laughs).

CD: Is there a particular type of score or project you're eager to try your hand at someday?

NJ: I'm not sure. I guess the answer is that I don't really have a checklist of, "I'd like to do this type of score." The great thing about working with Rian is that when I get a script, I know it's going to be a new, different world. What goes hand-in-hand with that is figuring out a totally new, different approach to the music - which has been really fun and challenging on all three things we've done so far. I guess the "sort-of-answer" to your question is that I'm a lot more interested in the quality of the work than the genre or style of film music.

CD: So as long as it's worthwhile, it doesn't matter what type of music you're doing.

NJ: Yeah, totally. It's so thrilling to be involved with something that you're really excited about artistically. I guess it's a bit like an actor; you get a chance to put on a different hat. Your stamp is always on the music, but it feels really fun to step in and out of different worlds. That's one thing which is very unique to film music which is different from being a performer or in a band.

CD: The comparison to acting is interesting, and perhaps particularly apt in your case and your cousin's case given the diverse nature of your work so far. Brick, The Brothers Bloom and Looper are such wildly different efforts that the average person wouldn't look at them as a group and think, "Oh, all of this came from that guy."

NJ: Right! (laughs)

CD: Was one of those projects more satisfying than the others, or have the experiences been pretty comparable?

NJ: I don't know if as a sum total one was more satisfying, but they were definitely satisfying in different ways. Bloom was extremely satisfying in terms of melody and a songwriter's perspective, whereas Looper has very little of that. But Looper was very satisfying in terms of trying something brand new and seeing where that went. I mean, there isn't much melody in Looper, but it feels very satisfying to have gone down this rabbit hole of building new sound and taking a tonal approach to the world.

CD: Looking ahead, what's next on the horizon for you?

NJ: I've got a couple projects that I'm working on that I'm really excited about, but I don't think I can publicly talk about them yet. They will become apparent very soon*, and I think they're gonna be really cool. (Laughs)

CD: Fair enough. Nathan, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us about your work.

NJ: Thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it.

*Mr. Johnson is scoring Joseph Gordon-Levitt's forthcoming directorial debut Don John, which hadn't been announced at the time of this interview.

Back at ya later

A Few Thoughts on Roger Ebert

It took a few minutes for the news of Roger Ebert's passing to sink in. This couldn't be right. Sure, Mr. Ebert had faced a number of severe health problems over the course of the last decade, and he had recently revealed that his cancer had returned. However, when addressing the matter, Roger spoke as if the cancer was nothing more than another obstacle to be overcome. He had successfully beaten one health problem after another, and continued to remain active in the realm of film criticism despite the fact that most men in his position would have called it quits. He had every reason in the world to hang it up and relax, but his love for his profession demanded that he keep writing until he reached the point where he was physically unable to do so. Even as his physical form deteriorated into an unrecognizable version of its former self, he retained his unmistakable voice as a writer.

The realization that I would never again read a new Ebert review was nothing short of alarming. The man is more or less single-handedly responsible for my interest in film criticism. During my teenage years, I would quickly follow each movie I watched with a visit to Ebert's website to read his review. Sure, I read reviews by other critics, but my relationship with Ebert was on a different level. There was something about the deeply personal, candid, unpretentious way that the famed Chicago Sun-Times critic expressed his views which really resonated with me. His work had a conversational quality; a plainspoken sincerity which made him stand apart from the crowd. He marched to the beat of his own drum regardless of where critical consensus drifted, and permitted his emotions to drive his reviews to an extent that few other critics seemed comfortable with. On many occasions, this approach permitted Ebert to develop a reputation as a man ahead of the curve (after all, he was one of the first critics to endorse Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey - movies which are regarded as classics today but which were hotly debated by critics upon their initial release). At other times, it made him look out of touch (such as when he panned A Clockwork Orange and labeled Godfather II as a disappointment in contrast to its predecessor). Even so, there was never any doubt that he was always delivering his honest opinion, critical trends be damned.

I have to admit that there's a good chance that I love many of the films I love simply because Ebert loved them. Ebert was a great entertainer, and his negative reviews were often delightfully savage (so memorable that Ebert saw fit to compile many of them in collections endearingly titled Your Movie Sucks and I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie). However, he was at his best when he was praising a movie, which isn't something which can be said of many critics. As Steven Soderbergh recently noted, critics tend to be immensely creative when they're crafting insults but turn dull when they're trying to describe a film's greatness. Not in Ebert's case. When the man was passionate about a movie, his enthusiasm was infectious. On literally hundreds of occasions, I would read a four-star Ebert review and excitedly head to my local video rental store to see if they had that particular title in stock. I'd watch the film, form my own opinion and then go back to re-read the review. I had some of his particularly thought-provoking reviews more or less memorized.

Movies have been an integral part of life, and Mr. Ebert guided me to so many of my most rewarding cinematic experiences. Yes, there were plenty of established classics (2001: A Space Odyssey, Taxi Driver, Vertigo) that I probably would have gotten around to eventually, but there were also countless smaller, more obscure films that Ebert championed with equal gusto: Gates of Heaven. Ikiru. Winter Light. The films of Werner Herzog, Ramin Bahrani and Krzystof Kieslowski. He was such a champion of cinematic underdogs that he even began Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, devoted to spotlighting recently-released films which he felt hadn't received the level of praise and/or attention they deserved. It was through his accessible, thoughtful reviews that myself and countless others began to explore movies beyond the major studio fare and learn how to regard movies critically. Some have declared that Ebert dumbed down film criticism when he and Gene Siskel introduced the thumbs up/thumbs down system, but anyone who feels that way neglected to hear the words which accompanied the thumbs. More than any other critic, Ebert worked hard to expand the horizons of the average viewer.

Visiting his website each Friday was a weekly highlight, as I would eagerly devour his latest batch of reviews (and would often use them to help determine which two or three movies I would see over the course of the weekend). I'm not ashamed to admit that I spent many Thursday nights hitting the refresh button and impatiently waiting for Mr. Ebert's reliable editor Jim Emerson to upload the week's new reviews. Reading his work gave me a hunger not only to see new films, but to write about them myself. Had I never discovered him, I doubt I would have begun dabbling in the realm of film criticism.

I never had anything resembling a personal relationship with Mr. Ebert. We exchanged e-mails on a few occasions over the years (he was gracious enough to reply to a handful of compliments, complaints and questions I sent his way - and he treated an unknown nobody like myself as if I were one of his peers), but that was the extent of it. Even so, I can't shake the feeling that I've just lost a good friend. I know there are countless others who feel the same way. Over the past few years in particular, Ebert invited his readers into his personal life and took them on a step-by-step journey through his assorted medical battles. Even though his reviews grew increasingly erratic in his final years, he did some of his best writing on his personal blog, where he tackled any subject he felt inspired to tackle: politics, religion, sex, evolution, death, books, travel, movies, food, music, health, etc. It seems appropriate that the title of his memoir is Life Itself, as the man had valuable, thought-provoking things to say about nearly everything. He was a fine film critic, but more importantly, he was a great human being.

There are so many other things I'd like to say, so many other anecdotes about the various ways in which Ebert's work has affected my life - but for now, I'll simply say that I miss him so very much.

In conclusion, a few words from the man himself which are well worth remembering:

"Kindness covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. I didn't always know this and I am happy I lived long enough to find it out."

They Just Fade Away

The story I'm about to tell you isn't the sort of story I generally tell. Most of the encounters I talk about on Facebook are of the humorous or unusual variety; attempts to take snapshots of peculiar encounters. However, the story I'm about to relay is a story of romance, nostalgia, heartbreak and regret. It's a bit messy, because I've tried to preserve this story as it was told to me without grammatical or structural embellishment. I have left out specific names, however.

I spent a large portion of this morning in conversation with a 92-year-old World War II Veteran. He called the station and asked for me by name. He told me he just wanted someone to talk to. I asked why he had asked for me specifically, and he told me that he had heard me on a few programs and that I sounded like, "a pretty nice guy." He had a story he wanted to tell me.

"I was in the army in World War II," he said, "I never did see any action, but I suppose that's a good thing. I would have been ashamed if I hadn't at least been ready to fight, though. I spent most of my time in the military right here in the U.S. After the war I was stationed in Alabama, and while I was there I met a beautiful girl. You know that Blueberry Hill song? The one about the guy who found his thrill on Blueberry Hill?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Well, that song pretty much describes everything you need to know about what happened between us. It's basically our story. Sometimes I think whoever wrote that song must have been spying on us, but I know that ain't true. Anyway, before too long she was pregnant. Now most fellas would be pretty scared if they found out their girl was pregnant. But I wasn't scared. I was in love with this girl and I was happy. She was happy, too. We were going to get married - we wanted to do it pretty quickly before anybody really knew that she was pregnant. And I thought everything was going to be just great. Unfortunately, I had a nemesis."

"A nemesis?"

"Yeah. The sergeant above me. He was the meanest S.O.B. who ever lived. He hated most everybody, but he especially hated me. He always said I wasn't man enough for the army and he would make me do all the dirty work around the base. Anyway, my captain liked me and wanted to give me a promotion, but the sergeant wouldn't go along with it. So the captain waited until the sergeant was on furlough and then he got me a promotion. When the sergeant found out about that, he was really mad. All this was before me and the girl were going to get married, you understand."

"I see."

"Well, when he found out we were going to get married, he decided he was going to get revenge on me because I got that promotion. He told me that I was being transferred immediately and that I needed to leave the next day. Now, this was on a Tuesday, and I was supposed to get married on Saturday. She had gone out of town to visit her family for the week, and she was supposed to meet me back at the base on Friday. Now, believe it or not, I didn't even know where her family lived and I didn't know how to get in touch with her. I asked the sergeant if he could give her a message and tell her where I'd gone when she got back in town so we could make new arrangements. He grumbled about it and said I was a fool for getting married, but he said he would tell her.

"Anyway, I got transferred to a base in South Carolina and I didn't hear anything from her. I was worried, but back then I didn't have a way to get in contact with her. I was worried sick for a few weeks. Finally I was able to get enough time to drive back to Alabama for a couple of days. After I did some looking around, I discovered that she was still there - but she was married to one of my buddies! I was so upset I didn't even know what to do. I went marching over to see my friend and I was all ready to get into it with him. We almost started fighting, but he explained what happened. He said that the sergeant had told the girl that I had left and that I never wanted to see her again. Then my Buddy explained that he had seen her crying and asked her what was the matter. She told him what she thought I had done to her, and he felt real bad for her. He had a crush on her when I'd been seeing her, so he offered to marry her. She took him up on the offer 'cause she wanted to be married when she had her baby.

"My friend was real nice about it and all - he said that he didn't intend to let her go now that he was married to her, but if I wanted to talk to her alone and explain the situation he wouldn't object. But I said no. I couldn't bear to see again and know that I couldn't have her. I told him that I wouldn't want to do anything to interfere with his marriage and just asked him to tell her that I wished her all the luck in the world.

"Well, after that I was just in agony for a while. I wasn't really religious then - I'm saved now, but I didn't get saved properly until a few years ago - but anyway, I was praying all the time asking God to help me forget. Then I had a stroke and it really messed me up for a while, but it definitely took my mind off the situation. I don't know if that's something that just happened or if that was God answering my prayer in some funny way. But that happened. And after a while I was able to forget all about it. I never did get married, because any time I thought about romance I thought about her, and I didn't figure it would be fair to any other girl to get married when I was still in love with another woman. So I just focused on my work and my hobbies and other things."

There was a long silence.

"I don't know what to say," I said. "That's an incredibly sad story."

"Well, it was tough for a while," he said. "But I thought I had gotten over it. That's actually the reason I wanted to tell somebody - I've been having these dreams."

"What kind of dreams?"

"Dreams about her. Almost every night now. I keep thinking about her and wondering if she's still out there somewhere. She might be gone by now - I'm 92 and she'd be in her late 80's. But I don't know why, after all these years, I've started thinking about her again. Maybe once you get towards the end of life you start thinking about all the things you missed out on. Are you married?"

"Yes," I said.

"Are you happy?"

"Very much so," I said.

"Well, that's good. If I could tell young folks one thing, it would be when you find the love of your life, you should hold onto 'em no matter what. Doesn't matter if it costs you your job or your reputation or anything; none of that stuff really matters."

We talked for a while longer, as he filled me in on some of the other chapters in his life. He talked about how long he had been listening to the radio station, and that tuning for a couple of hours each morning was a part of his daily routine. He said he felt like everyone at the station was a personal friend, even though he hadn't even spoken to most of us. I asked him if I could share his story with others.

"Oh yes, please do," he said. "If it just helps one person out there, then that'll make me happy. That'll make me feel like at least some good came out of it, you know? Because right now it just feels like there's nothing good about it at all."