In the years before I made a living as a composer, I was a synthesist and techno guy for a number of film composers. One of the more prominent and interesting of the composers I worked with was Basil Poledouris. I met Basil through a friend who was his main orchestrator at the time. I did some orchestration work for Basil when the deadlines were too much for his orchestrator to handle.

Basil is best known for films such as Mickey Blue Eyes, Starship Troopers, Free Willy, Hunt for Red October, Lonesome Dove, RoboCop, Flesh & Blood, Red Dawn, Conan the Barbarian , and Blue Lagoon.

He is a consummate classically trained musician who also was one of the first film composers
to see the creative possibilities of electronic instruments and sounds. Still, he has made a name for himself though scores that are grand and highly romantic. He is also the only Hollywood composer I am aware of whose name has every vowel.

In 1999 I spent an afternoon with Basil at his Venice, California studio. It's a well laid out and efficient space. We talked about a number of musical topics from his unique and evolved perspective. Here are a few excerpts from our conversation.

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J-Do most film makers understand the process of music?

B- I think music is abstract enough of an idea and enough of a commodity that as composers we basically make a lot of choices that the client, the producer or director, is unaware of, nor should they be. I’m not aware of a lot of things a director has to do - his or her internal mechanisms. But you get the job done. I think they’re still dealing with dramatic concepts in dramatic film, and for me it’s about realizing the directors or producers vision.

J- Do you think you banged your head against the wall when you were starting out?

B- I know I did, and I think a lot of that probably has to do with insecurity. Like making sure that I found the right way to approaching something. There are a lot of approaches to the same problem. I don’t think there’s just one anymore.
Give ten film composers the same scene, you’re going to get ten different approaches, ten different kinds of scores. I always assumed their was just one way I could write, and that was either because of my limitations or insecurities or whatever, and I stuck to it. It was my style and, to a certain degree, people expected it. I was hired for it. But now it’s different. It’s changed a lot for me and I think there are a lot of different kinds of movies.

J- There’s so many interesting ways to make music.

B- Yeah, I suppose there always were. It’s just so much more accessible now. You can try out ideas without having so many limitations. You have the luxury of experimenting with electronic instruments, whereas before it was a gamble. It was only the gutsy that would push things.

J- Do you know why you get hired to do a film?

B- It’s generally because of a film I’ve done prior to it. It speaks to the new project and someone hears something in there- the most notable example in my career was Paul Verhoeven hearing Conan the Barbarian. He really wanted me to do "Flesh and Blood" because of that. Conan had that kind of medieval thing that he was looking for. Randal Kleiser hired me to do "Blue Lagoon" because of something he heard in "Big Wednesday." There was a kind of warmth and quality to it. I don’t think any of us could define it. There’s an emotional response to it. You might be able to analyze it intellectually, but in the end it is emotionally that kind of response you want people to have for your scores.

J- You were using electronics as early as anybody.

B- Yeah, absolutely. I always added the electronics as an orchestral color. But not until MIDI and the sophisticated sequencers came along that we have now was it possible to do a mock-up of the whole instrumental pallet. I think that’s changed my attitude about how I approach film scores a lot.

J- I know that the bar has certainly been raised with all this gear in terms of what directors expect to hear when they walk into a composers studio. You’re exceptional in the fact that you’re such a good pianist that you can dazzle a director by playing and describing a score.

B- Used to be, thirty years ago

J- You know what I mean. There’s lots of composers who don’t really play piano very well, but are able to do their work from using their MIDI gear.

B- Do you see any pianos in here? We need to get rid of the preconceived notion about how we approach scores now. That’s the difference. Before it was spot a movie, go away and write for a while, then meet with the director to play maybe a couple of main themes on piano, and no more. Six weeks later you show up on the scoring stage, and that would be the first time they ever had an idea of the score beyond the piano sketches. Now it’s totally different.
It depends on the director. I think particularly that younger directors expect that process of working with the composer, and hearing almost a full realization in the electronic mock-up form of what the score’s going to be. I don’t mind that, though it’s more time consuming for me. I know what it’s going to sound like, but it takes time to sequence and review. Then it opens the door to change. Sometimes that change is very positive, but sometimes it isn’t. That’s where the collaboration comes into play. You talk about the possibilities. You explore the alternatives. Sometimes you end up where you started, but sometimes it goes in a different direction which can be very exciting.