Recording - July 2011 - 55

Continued from page 52 most intense, loudest brass I’ve ever heard in my life. Just baaaaaaa, you know? How did he do that? So that doesn’t apply to our show very well. My shows tend to change styles. If you’re scoring a show like Desperate Housewives or House or Six Feet Under, those kinds of shows have the same cues, the same style. It’s not bad, it’s their signature—it’s their sound. It’s the same thing. So a lot of the time I would estimate that 70% of those cues are probably just tracked from previous episodes. By track they just use the same cue again, or maybe the same cue with a little variation, which none of us really would know. My shows are not like that for some reason, and I have to work really hard. I mean, Clone Wars uses a completely new score for every episode. Maybe we track a couple minutes in a fight scene sometimes because they’re on different planets and I’m doing John Williams, but I’m doing a hybrid of John Williams and a modern film score. That’s a hard show to write. Cartoons are the hardest thing on Earth! Why? Kevin: They’re a little more hit-y. You have to hit more moments. The music takes these turns, so you don’t get to settle into a groove, which is useful having a groove because you can get some mileage out of that. So have to take all these crazy turns. It’s extremely orchestral, so you’ve got to have your orchestra chops in, and you’ve got to voice things correctly while you’re taking all these turns. You know, like I forgot about the bass clarinets, which I always do. Cartoons are just hard. It’s hard to hit that many moments. Now, Clone Wars is not as hit-y. I did Stuart Little, and I also did Harold and the Purple Crayon, and those were extremely Mickey Mouse-ish. Not a bad Mickey Mouse, but you call it Mickey Mouse in a cartoon when you just follow every kind of thing, like the Looney Tunes used to do. You mean, literally, like if there are characters walking, you’re doing,“Do-ti-do-ti-do?” Kevin: Sort of. It’s just takes turns every three to five seconds. Five seconds and then you take a turn. I’m not trying to brag, but if you find somebody who’s a good animation composer, you respect that person, because they know their craft. I mean, they might not have the melodies that John does, but they know their craft. Oh, I’ve gotta tell you guys. Check this out! Kevin asked me at lunch,“Do you want me to score an upcoming episode of CSI: Miami onstage for the audience?”That look on your face [the audience] was exactly the look on my face. I told him that the schedule was already published, and all the classes are already etched in stone. But he said next year he will come back, so, I’m

telling you now that it will be the first weekend in November of next year, and we will put the big screen up here and let Kevin do his thing in front of us! Kevin: You guys will pick the key and the tempo and everything. How long does it take you to do a show from start to finish? Kevin: My wife’s back there, she’d probably know better than me. Honey, how long does it take me to score a show? Where are you Mrs. Kiner? Wave your hand. Kevin: She’s shy. See she’s ducking. I really don’t know. It takes a lot of time. If I’m really cranking I can write five minutes in a day. I can probably write six or seven minutes of CSI: Miami in a day, and that’s a 10-hour day, with not long breaks, and, you

know, your butt’s sore from sitting in the seat all day. Is that writing and recording? I mean, laying down the tracks? Kevin: It’s sequencing. It’s done, except for my mix. Yeah, it’s finished, and then my mixer just kind of…takes my money I guess, I don’t know. [laughter] He’s like, “Oh, that sounds good.” Don’t you only get a week to turn around an episode? Kevin: Yeah, I get one week on CSI: Miami, because I co-write it, so I so an average of nine to 14 minutes—because we split it—of CSI every week. And then we have some weeks off. We don’t work every week on Miami. And then I have two weeks to do Clone Wars, and that’s 22 minutes I have to do in two weeks.

http://www.recordingmag.com http://www.recordingmag.com

Recording - July 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - July 2011