Supe Troop’s Laura Katz interviews composer Paul Saunderson about composing music for film, Fight or Flight (which they both worked on), and soup!
Supe Troop (ST): How did you get into film scoring?
Paul Saunderson (PS): From a young age, I was always interested in film music; I really connected with the use of combining contemporary instruments with more standard orchestral music. As a child, I learnt to play guitar, saxophone, and piano and was also really interested in the technical side of music, recording techniques, producing, and mixing. After graduating from The University of Leeds, where I studied music, I moved down to London, where I assisted composer Ilan Eshkeri and film score producer Steve Mclaughlin. This was as much an eduction as well as a job as I became emersed in the world of film scoring. I began to work as an additional composer for a wide variety of composers in a multitude of genres, along with working with different recording artists as an arranger. It was here where I had my first film scoring opportunities as lead composer. Since then I have scored for film, TV, and documentaries.
ST: How do you start on the score for a new project?
PS: In an ideal world, I like to start at the script stage and start to come with initial concepts for the score and try to write the main thematic material for the project, with complete freedom away from any picture or editorial cuts to hit. Then I would share these ideas with the director and editor in the hope that, when the edit starts, some of this material becomes part of the temp score. Then, from there, a collaborative conversation begins regarding the music, enabling us to create something unique for the project. I much prefer this approach rather than coming later into a project where the goal posts have already been set and so many creative decisions or choices on the score’s direction have already been made.
ST: When scenes give you trouble, what are some of the things you do to make them work?
PS: If I am finding it hard to make score work over a particular scene, I open the question of ‘do we need music here? What are we saying?’ In the past, I have found scenes to be difficult to score because music really shouldn’t be there in the first place. Alternatively, I step away from the scene and then come back to it and normally, by then having scored more of the film, I am able to re-use or pull ideas from later parts of the film.
ST: What was your favorite scene in Fight or Flight to score?
PS: My favourite scene… I would like to say two scenes, as they are linked. The first scene is towards the back end of the film, when Josh’s character has already taken the toad venom, but we are slowly witnessing him loose his mind–the whole scene goes from all these assassins trying to break into the cargo hold, from an emotional and slightly poignant moment back to the assassins then back to Josh doing star jumps and becoming more high from the toad venom. The whole scene goes through so many shifts–it was really fun to hit all these corner turns and play into the humour and intensity of everything going on. The second scene is the whole hallucination scene, straight after where we see the cabin fight through the eyes of Josh. The music is completely bonkers here and all over the place (for good reason); it was great fun to just let rip and try and enhance pictorially what we ‘as the audience’ were seeing.
ST: What are the differences between scoring an action film liked Fight or Flight versus other projects you’ve worked (for example, you know I like your music for Trying!)?
PS: Trying couldn’t be more different to Fight or Flight, the instrumentation is completely different, but also most music cue moments in Trying are quite short, between one to two minutes at the most and sometimes only 30 seconds, so, once a cue comes in, it comes in boldly and does a lot in a very short space of time. Whereas in film, such as Fight or Flight, the cues tend to be longer, and also there is a lot more music underscoring and hitting a lot more story beats. As for the action, the score here really is hitting everything, every hit, swipe, miss, bang; it’s almost playing what you see. I would say in this particular genre of action, I didn’t have to play a lot of subtext, it’s a more is more approach… which is why it’s so fun and bold and outrageous at times.
ST: What is an example of where you think another composer nailed a project or particular scene?
PS: This might sound cliche but I really loved Hans Zimmer’s score to both Dune films. Watching those films in the cinema to me demonstrated a great synergy between music and sound design and world creation that transported the audience.
ST: What non-score music are you listening to right now?
PS: I love listening to a lot of cinematic style songs such as artists like Woodkid, Freya Ridings, M83.
ST: What’s your favorite instrument?
PS: Cello
ST: What would be your dream project to score?
PS: An action science fiction movie… maybe set in a dystopian world.
ST: What projects do you have coming up that you are excited about?
PS: I am working on a few new BBC natural history projects, such as EARTH that I scored a few years ago. One called HUMAN and the other EVOLUTION. Musically I get the freedom to create other-worldly scores filled with awe and wonder, which is wonderful to be able to do as a composer.
ST: What is your favorite kind of soup?
PS: Curried butternut squash.
Thanks, Paul! You can watch Fight or Flight in US theaters this Friday. Get your tickets now!
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