Suicide Girls Interview
Subtitle: Danny ELFMAN. Composer for Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
by Daniel Robert Epstein, 2005.10?
Source: http://suicidegirls.com/words/Danny%20ELFMAN/
Link courtesy of Daniel Robert Epstein
When one talks about the greats in movie music composing the
name Danny ELFMAN invariably comes up. His collaborations with Sam Raimi, Gus
Van Sant and the creation of The Simpsons’ unmistakable theme song
have made his name synonymous with great works.
Though it’s his collaborations with visionary director Tim
Burton that has brought him his most acclaim. From his starring role in The
Nightmare Before Christmas to his Oscar nominated score for Big Fish their
names have been eternally linked together.
Now they have collaborated again on the score and original songs
for Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. Not only did ELFMAN create a wonderful
and romantic score but he wrote and sang one of the best songs in the film,
Remains of the Day, as the skeleton man Bonejangles.
Daniel Robert Epstein: I was the journalist at the Toronto
Film Festival who asked what the best music concert you ever went to was. You
said you went to Jimi Hendrix’s last show, what was that like?
Danny ELFMAN: I kind of only half remember it because
it was at the end of his three day Idlewild thing. I don’t know for a fact
that it was his very last concert but I know that he died quite soon thereafter.
So I can say it was one of his last concerts.
DRE: Close enough.
ELFMAN: I was exhausted and muddy and tired and it was like definitely really
amazing. But my memory of the last day of Idlewild is all just a little bit
fuzzy at this point.
DRE: I’m sure it was a fuzzy even then.
ELFMAN: I think I was only 16
DRE: Of course we’re talking about Corpse Bride.
Warner Bros seems to be much more behind this one than Disney was behind Nightmare
Before Christmas. How did that change things for you?
ELFMAN: In the making of the film there’s no difference.
Tim [Burton] keeps his projects far away from studio interference. He did Nightmare
in San Francisco and he did Corpse Bride in London and both productions
were very much on their own but there was a big difference in the feeling at
the end. Unfortunately with Nightmare Disney got the impression that
they had a horrible flop that nobody wanted to see and the kids hated it based
on a preview. It was disheartening because you felt all their support just disappear.
They stopped all the merchandising, they just cut it cold and when you’re
working really hard for two years on something it’s really difficult when
you see the studio and the producers just totally distance themselves from it.
DRE: You’ve worked with so many filmmakers at this point. What’s
it like working with someone like Tim who is given so much freedom within the
studio system?
ELFMAN: Working with Tim is just like working with Tim. It’s a regular
thing for me. It’s always both easy and difficult than working with other
directors. It’s easier in a sense I know I’m going to be able to do
some really fun stuff and getting inside his head is such an interesting place
to be. It can be difficult insofar as he can be very difficult to nail down
and pull him into the musical world. He’s not a pushover. With some directors
I will get an automatic yes. But Tim will get very specific and wait for things
to hit him a certain way. Sometimes things will hit him strangely or odd. Sometimes
we have to go through a bit of a journey to get to where we’re going to
get to. But the good thing about working with Tim is that I know however that
journey is, difficult or not, I’m always going to be pleased at the end.
It’s never a waste of time.
DRE: What kind of film is harder when it comes to working with
Tim, is it something like Big Fish which deals with a lot of complex
underlying emotions?
ELFMAN: The complex part sometimes is really just Tim’s own complexity.
He’s not a simple guy so arriving at a certain place isn’t necessarily
automatic or simple. I think sometimes we have to take kind of a little bit
of a circular journey and find what the musical heart and the tone of the film
is. These are not the kind of films where it is real easy to walk in and go
“Oh yeah, yeah, I know exactly what that is. That’s a piece of cake.”
They very rarely would fall into that category.
DRE: I remember at the press conference in Toronto you
had said that you did not want to sing originally in Corpse Bride. Did
you do a temp track and like it?
ELFMAN: No, I did a temp because I do a complete temp version of everything.
They had it for a long time and were storyboarding to it. When it came time
to produce the song, I’d written it for another voice. That’s what
happened. I imagined a different voice much rougher than mine. We put a ton
of effort into finding a voice and we did auditions in London and New York.
It was a big deal. I recorded three different singers but Tim called and said,
“You know, I still like the temp better. Would you mind doing the song?”
So I did, the thing was I could sing Jack Skellington’s parts for days
but Bonejangles is the kind of a voice that’s really difficult for me to
do. It was a challenge. His voice was a much rougher kind of voice than Jack’s
would be.
DRE: I read Mel Blanc’s biography and he said after doing Yosemite Sam
he would have to drink tea and relax his voice for a few days.
ELFMAN: Yeah, it was like that with Bonejangles for me. I could only sing for
20 minutes then my throat would be completely trashed and I’d have to stop.
Then I had to go back in like three times because they kept making changes to
the storyboards so I had to redo some of it. It was tons of fun, but painful.
DRE: When you went to the set of Corpse Bride,
what did that do for your songwriting process?
ELFMAN: Nothing because the songs were done before there were things to look
at. When I wrote the songs there was nothing but Tim’s pictures. They couldn’t
start animating until there was a finished song. It was always really fun going
onto the set, but when I was doing the songs I primarily had Tim’s drawings.
DRE: When you see a very skinny character like Victor, would you write a song
for him that doesn’t have a lot of bass in it? Or does it not make a difference
what the character looks like?
ELFMAN: Early on before I saw anything I wrote these piano solos
for Victor. So already at the very beginning I had come up with a theme. But
Victor doesn’t actually sing in the movie although he did originally have
a song but that didn’t survive. But I would just think about what they
were singing about and just have fun. Just like on Nightmare.
DRE: How much did you deal with [Corpse Bride] co-director
Mike Johnson?
ELFMAN: A lot because when I was starting to work on the bigger songs like
Remains of the Day and the Wedding Song I had to sit and do a lot of jawboning
with him and all the storyboard artists. We would talk through different ideas
and then I would write down lots of notes. Based on that I would go off and
start writing tunes and when I finished a tune I would just work with Tim. Then
when Tim and I were in sync we would turn the tune over to the production.
DRE: Since Corpse Bride was a lower budgeted film, did you still use a full
orchestra?
ELFMAN: Yeah it was a full orchestra. Not as big as the orchestra
for Charlie [and the Chocolate Factory], but it’s probably a little
closer to the size of the orchestra in Nightmare or in-between. I didn’t
really feel like I needed a really large orchestra, but it wasn’t a small
one either. I think it was just kind of normal.
DRE: Is it a budget that dictates the size of an orchestra or is it the scale
and scope of the film?
ELFMAN: In both Corpse Bride and Charlie it was
the scale and scope of the film. For Nightmare I wanted a smaller orchestra.
I didn’t want a big orchestral sound. For Corpse Bride because it
was a more romantic score so originally I was going to use a similar thing to
Nightmare, but then I ended up adding a slightly bigger orchestra because
I felt like I needed a bigger string section.
DRE: When other directors call you, what is it they want from you?
ELFMAN: I have no idea. Believe me, I have no idea why anybody hires me ever
and I’m often surprised that they do. You’d have to ask the directors.
I’m sure it’s because they heard something in some film score that
I did that made them think, “Oh, I like that.” I can only imagine
that that’s the case. Very few directors have told me specifically.
DRE: After something like Good Will Hunting, did smaller
scale films come your way?
ELFMAN: I can’t say it that a whole lot more did or maybe they did and
I just didn’t really know. Once I book up a year, I don’t really know
what films do come my way because they don’t get to me. If I’m already
hired on a film I may get four more film offers but I’m not going to know
about it. They’ll simply be told that I’m unavailable for this period
of time. I never do scores that are overlapping. It’s actually impossible
to do that unless you’re willing to hire other people.
DRE: Have you heard of SuicideGirls?
ELFMAN: Yeah, I saw it last night. It’s pretty fun and wild.
DRE: How many Goth and punk fans do you see nowadays since you’re not
touring?
ELFMAN: Well, I don’t. Except when I was in Japan with Tim
a couple weeks ago and we spent like a great evening in a Goth club. It was
almost like a Nightmare Before Christmas club really. First I was spooked
because as I was walking up into the club I heard the music and it was me singing
a Jack Skellington tune. I wanted to leave but then Tim was like, “No,
let’s stay a while and check it out.” It ended up being really fun.
But that’s like the first exposure I’ve had with that kind of element
first hand in ages.
DRE: Both you and Tim come off a little Goth even though you were both older
when it first hit big. Were you ever like that?
ELFMAN: No, I was never like anything. When I started in the 1970’s I
was only into music recorded before 1935. So I was a freak. I’m closer
to some kind of weird film/music nerd than like some kind of punk or Goth. Then
suddenly I wanted to be in a ska band and I did this weird musical theater for
years. I got all these different incarnations. But I’ve never been a punk
or a Goth. I think I’ve just been a nerd with these like weird musical
styles.
DRE: Do you have any desire to play live music anymore?
ELFMAN: Not really. Let me put it this way, I have no desire ever to be on
an Oingo Boingo stage again.
DRE: Why not?
ELFMAN: I can’t get in front of a stage that loud again. I spent 17 years
in a band in front of monitors and it fucked up my ears. It was insanely loud.
I was standing in front of four monitors blasting my own voice into my head
which has to be louder than the band to be able to sing and hear yourself during
these fucking two and a half, three hour shows. Then it all has to be louder
than 6000 screaming audience members. Believe me when I say this, it was louder
than anything you can imagine. I really got to the point where if I stayed in
that environment any longer I would be deaf right now.
DRE: Obviously, that would be highly detrimental to you.
ELFMAN: Yeah and as a result I’ve gotten some pretty shitty hearing levels.
Which is a big problem and it’s gotten to be a worse problem as I go. So
the thought of getting out into that level, I mean I can’t even take really
loud clubs anymore. If I walk into a restaurant or a club where it’s loud
it physically hurts. It feels like I’m getting daggers in my head.
DRE: Supposedly about 12 years ago you and Tim had a fight and
that’s why you ended up not scoring Ed Wood, is that an exaggeration?
ELFMAN: No, we had one big blow up in our 20 years together
and that is true about Ed Wood. We were very upset and we both said we‘d
never speak to each other again. It was one of those kinds of moments. But with
Tim and I, it’s almost like a family thing. Now with the wisdom of age
and hindsight, over a two decade period with our personalities being what they
are, it’s inevitable that we’d have to have some kind of meltdown
somewhere.
DRE: It had been about ten years up to that point.
ELFMAN: Yeah and we used to joke that we’d end up like Bernard Herrmann
and Alfred Hitchcock and sure enough, we did. But fortunately, this is where
the family thing comes in, we never disagreed over a piece of music. Let me
put it that way.
DRE: It was just over probably nothing.
ELFMAN: It’s too complex to even get into. But these
things are never over about one thing. It was probably something that had been
building up for years and had to explode. In the year and a half or so that
Tim and I didn’t speak, I felt really shitty. It turned out that he didn’t
feel very good about it either. So that’s where the family thing comes
in because I’ve had fights with my own brother where I vowed I’d never
speak to him again. But in the end you’re family and you find yourself
missing that person. That’s absolutely what happened with Tim. So it was
gratifying to find out that we both felt the same way. While Tim was shooting
Mars Attacks, I got this call from a producer saying, “Will Danny
ever consider speaking to Tim again?” I was on a plane the next day. We
met in a coffee shop in Kansas, hugged, sat down and said, “That was fucked
up.” He said “Let’s forget the whole thing and just move on from
this discussion.” I said “Absolutely.” We never spoke of it again
and we’ve never had any personal issues again.
DRE: On purpose or it just has never come up again?
ELFMAN: I think it was a learning experience so now I think we’re probably
both a little more cautious. We’re both really passionate about what we
do so you get smarter about stuff like that. It’s like in a marriage, you
know. You go through like a big horrible break up so you get together and you
really don’t want that to happen again. Then when you feel your emotions
getting all worked up and intense, you step back.
DRE: What do you think of the score to Ed Wood?
ELFMAN: I didn’t really know what to make of it. The whole thing was just
weird, so I didn’t really have any objective opinion. I never was even
able to like watch the whole thing in one sitting. It just represented a really
nasty period. Once again, if you’re in a marriage and there was something
in the center of that whole thing, a part of you will never be able to just
go and look at that thing because it’s always going to remind you of that
really nasty period.
That was a particularly intense time because I’d been on
Nightmare for two and a half years then did Batman Returns in
the middle of that. It was all this overlapping stuff and a lot of frustrations
just kind of blew up. But I’ve had different kinds of disagreements with
different directors over the years and there are directors who I don’t
want to work with anymore but as intense as it was I’ve never had an unworkable
disagreement with Tim over a piece of music. At the end of the day I always
got to remember that. I’ve always come out of a Tim Burton movie feeling
good even with some of the ones that were really difficult to work on.
DRE: I read that you have a couple screenplays.
ELFMAN: I have a musical that Disney bought, another musical
at Fox that l I wrote years ago and I have a non-musical ghost film that I wrote
for Warner Bros, that has been a turnaround for like 12 years. But I just got
it out of turnaround this year. In fact, as a result of doing Charlie
and Corpse Bride part of my deal was to get the script back. But I wrote
another one which we’re looking for money now.
DRE: Did you write these films by yourself?
ELFMAN: Yeah. The first one I wrote, which wasn’t a musical is a ghost
story. It takes place in an orphanage in Italy at the end of World War II. Fun
little story about this little kid and this ghost that is pursuing him. The
last one I wrote is about this incredible true story in Key West, Florida in
the 30’s and 40’s about a doctor who lived with his dead lover for
seven years and then was caught and had a sensational trial. A huge trial and
it just was too incredible a story to pass up. But it’s, as you can imagine,
a difficult sell. The movie is an old guy and a corpse and unlike the Corpse Bride it’s not a beautiful animated woman who lives in a wonderful, jazzy
world. It’s all these internal things inside his head. This incredible
obsessive love that he had for this woman.
DRE: Are these things that you would like to direct?
ELFMAN: Yeah.
DRE: Would you ever consider doing it on a low budget like your brother does?
ELFMAN: I wrote this last one to be a lower budget movie. But the first ones
I wrote were between like 12 and 20 million to make them. This last one I tried
to do something that could be done for closer to five. But getting five million
for a film that odd is still not an easy call. But we’re working on it.
DRE: Literally about two hours ago I spoke to the director
of the new Johnny Cash movie Walk the Line, what would the Oingo Boingo
biopic be like?
ELFMAN: I think it would be really boring.
DRE: Because you’re all still alive?
ELFMAN: Well and Oingo Boingo really didn’t have that wild life. In real
life the members of Oingo Boingo were not crazy rock and rollers doing extraordinary
stuff. Ten of the years I was in Oingo Boingo I was scoring films so my life
would have been the most boring one on the planet.
DRE: The movie Back to School had a pretty impressive
cast, on top of Rodney Dangerfield and Robert Downey Jr., Kurt Vonnegut had
a small role. You and the band had a small role in that, how was that?
ELFMAN: It was just a quick thing. I can’t even remember if it was one
or two days. It was funny because Robert Downey Jr. was sitting there at a mock
mixing board to mix the band and we were essentially lip synching the tune.
DRE: I read how you’re not going to work on Spider-Man
3. Do you want to comment on that?
ELFMAN: Let me put it this way, there is no amount of
money that anybody could offer me to do Spider-Man 3. I would sooner
go back to bussing tables,.
DRE: I look on the IMDB and I see six people credited
with the music on Spider-Man 2. Did that contribute to your feelings?
ELFMAN: It’s all about how the production went completely insane at the
end. It was the worst film experience I’ve had in 20 years. It was all
pure insanity, it was all completely needless and in the end they went nuts
trying to imitate every single note of their temp score. If I think somebody’s
obsessively attached to a temp score in any way I’d stay away from it.
But this was the worst I’ve seen times ten and I’ve worked with some
pretty anal directors. Warren Beatty and Martin Brest are not easy people but
this was taking anal retentive to a new extreme.
DRE: It’s odd because Sam Raimi is a guy you’ve been working with
for 15 years.
ELFMAN: Sam was not there.
He was there, but he was not the Sam that I knew. As you said,
I’ve known Sam for almost 15 years. It was my fifth movie with him and
all I can say is that the person who was there at the end of Spider-Man 2 was
not Sam. I don’t know who it was, but it wasn’t Sam. It was as close
to living out Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as I’ve ever experienced.
There’s a lot of micro-managers out there. Tim’s a micro-manager musically
in his own way and there’s moments where he’ll get real obsessive
over like a certain cue. But we work it out. Never in 20 years have I come across
a situation where I couldn’t work it out. For a director to be a micro-manager
is nothing new. If anything I would say most of them are. But to get to the
level where you don’t need a composer, you just need a musical arranger
to adapt note for note as close as possible. There’s nothing for me to
do as a composer here.
DRE: Would you work with Sam again?
ELFMAN: Not if I can help it.
It’s too bad because Sam was at the top of my list. He was
actually even easier than Tim to work with and we’d never had a disagreement.
To see such a profound negative change in a human being was almost enough to
make me feel like I didn’t want to make films anymore. It was really disheartening
and sad to see the way it ended up. The end of Spider-Man 2 was a self-induced
hysteria. It got to a point where I couldn’t even adapt my own music close
enough because two thirds of their temp score was Spider-Man 1. If I
varied from one note it was like a self-induced hysteria.
DRE: That’s bizarre.
ELFMAN: They wanted this one cue that was basically from
Hellraiser and I was like “I can’t get any closer and I’m
not going to imitate [Hellraiser composer] Christopher Young. Go fucking
hire Christopher Young.” So they hired Christopher Young to do a cue like
Hellraiser and he couldn’t get close enough to Hellraiser
so they ended up licensing the cue from Hellraiser.
DRE: What are you doing now?
ELFMAN: I’m moving on to Charlotte’s Web.
Ironically another singing spider.
DRE: Does that have songs in it?
ELFMAN: Well there’s just one song, a lullaby. The mother sings it to
the child, and then Charlotte sings to Wilbur the pig.
DRE: Have you worked with Gary Winick before?
ELFMAN: No, I’ve actually just met him once in New
York. We only talked on the phone and I just knew that Charlotte’s Web
is a real classic story.
DRE: I love that book so much.
ELFMAN: I haven’t seen a frame yet and I’m just
praying that it comes out good. There’s just no way to tell at this point
other than its great potential. Obviously this is a big stretch going into this
kind of world of animals and CG combined with live action. But I really liked
Tadpole so I think he’s talented and I’m really curious to
see what he came up with.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck