??-??-2000
The Hollywood Reporter Composer Registry Golden Circle
Interview with Mark Snow

Welcome to The Hollywood Reporter Composer Registry Golden Circle, our tribute to those composers who continue to inspire through their work and love of music. It is our pleasure to welcome Mark Snow.

Golden Circle: Starsky and Hutch in 1975 was one of your first big composing jobs. How did you get into the business and land that job?

Mark Snow: My brother-in-law was an actor in a series that Aaron Spelling did called The Rookies, and that was my first job. They liked me over there and I did other work for them. Starsky and Hutch was part of that. Right now to me, anything before The X-Files is almost like something I don’t remember. I mean, there’s a lot of it. I would say there have been two big beats to my career; “Pre-X” and “After X.”

GC: And how did you win The X-Files job?

Mark Snow: I had a producer friend named Bob Goodwin and he did the pilot up in Canada. He suggested me to Chris Carter and Chris didn’t have a relative or a friend who was a composer, so he was just looking around. Oddly enough, one of his main concerns was that he wanted someone on the west side (of L.A.) so he didn’t have to go out to Agora or Woodland Hills or someplace every day on his way from the Palisades to the Fox studios. So he came to my place twice and heard some stuff and looked around. He was very polite and respectful, but he didn’t say much else. About a week after the second visit, I got a call saying they wanted me to do it. At the time it was good news, you know, but if I had known what was coming, I would have been jumping up and down like a maniac. I knew it was a cool thing, but it certainly didn’t seem like it was going to be this phenomenon.

GC: How has technology, specifically digital, changed composing over your nearly 30-year career?

Mark Snow: Around 1985-86 these different kinds of keyboards were coming out and there was a more sophisticated sense of sound and sampling at that time, although it was still incredibly primitive compared to now. Most of the working people were finding combinations of electronic gear to make mini home studios. It seemed like a very important bandwagon to be part of, so I looked around and came up with a Synclavier as the most impressive, most important thing at that time, although it was invented in the late ’60’s by some people at Dartmouth college. It seemed to me the most self-contained situation. You didn’t have to have five different keyboards with wires going berserk all over the place. They had an amazing storage capability, amazing recall capability and recording capability all wrapped into one thing. Plus, it had more voices than anything at the time so the sound was pretty cool. It took me a good three or four years to make the thing sound really great and luckily when The X-Files came around in ’93, I knew it really well and had stored up a great personal library of sounds and samples that went into the theme.

GC: Needle drop and pre-written compilation soundtracks have become increasingly popular these days. What effect, if any, do you feel they have had on original score composers?

Mark Snow: I think the subject of a lot of films and t.v. out there right now really benefit from pop music or other sources of music beyond the actual score. I did the movie Disturbing Behavior, and it had tons of songs on it and that was absolutely right for the picture. I don’t think that stuff takes away from the composer’s roll at all. Say, for example, your Elmer Bernstein on Ghostbusters, – that was a gigantic-selling album, you know, with Ghostbusters, (written and performed by Ray Parker Jr.) on it, and he had two and or three cuts on it and made a couple million dollars. Or going back to David Shire when he had two cuts on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Those guys aren’t too unhappy about it. And my thing with The X-Files, there were two cd’s with that show. One had just my music on it and the other one had a bunch of songs sort of inspired by the show and my music. So I went along for the ride on that. I hear a lot of detractors of this, but I just don’t see it as a negative.

GC: What do you see as the biggest differences between television and movie composing?

Mark Snow: I think everyone wants to think that they will eventually write for film scores, but you just do the work that is being offered to you at the time. There are a couple of people who started out when I did who didn’t do particularly well in t.v. and somehow they got to do a bunch of really crappy B-movies, but their careers gained momentum. Now some of these people are the ones who are in the forefront. It’s not about not wanting to or wanting to, it just happens that way. I’ve done a lot of t.v. stuff and that can tend to pigeon-hole you. Agents try to get me stuff and a lot of people will hear my music and say, ‘Oh boy, that’s great,’ and then say, ‘Oh, t.v., well … I don’t know.’

GC: Obviously your X-Files theme is very distinctive and unusual. Do you attempt to put a sort of “Mark Snow” stamp on all of your work?

Mark Snow: I don’t. I don’t think about that. I think about what’s right for the picture and what the obligation is to the film. Hopefully there’s a quality to it that might cut through and people will say, ‘Oh, that sounds like Snow.’ There are a lot of great composers who you can hear and recognize their style right away. I’d say like [Ennio] Morricone or John Barry, you recognize them when they’re doing what they do best. Morricone with his lush romantic themes and John Barry with his very slow, very broad, fat orchestral melodies, or John Williams with that 19th century orchestration that just flies all over the place. You get to recognize their style. My thing is that if I did a comedy or a romance or something else, I don’t think it would be too recognizable as Mark Snow. But that’s not necessarily bad. If I do a great score for a project, that’s the bottom line.

GC: What advice would you offer to a young Turk starting out in the business today?

Mark Snow: Things have completely changed since I started out. It’s interesting you use the term ‘young Turk’ because that’s really what you have to be. You have to have a strength and a confidence and a perseverance. If you’re lucky enough to have as much talent as perseverance, then you’ve got a really great shot. In the old days it was about getting meetings with the head of the music department at one of the studios. They had incredible influence. Now that’s all out the window. In film it’s the director who has a few good movies under his belt who gets to call the shots and that’s it. In t.v. it’s a combination of the director and the producer, but the producer or the people putting up the money usually have the last word on that. For a newcomer it’s about taking advantage of every relationship you have with anyone in the business, even if it’s not the music side of it, making contacts and hooking up with a working composer. I had a combination of a little nepotism with my family and then ghost writing for a few composers. Some of them were gracious enough to suggest me for stuff they couldn’t do and it just started to take on its own momentum. My success has not been something like these internet stocks where they go sky high instantly. It’s been this very sort of slow progress. On a graph, the line wouldn’t be spiked. Still, what would be amazing for me right now would be if somehow I got a shot at a movie and it was a success and people really took notice of the music. And then to spend the final third of my career working in movies, that would be my dream. On the other hand, if it stops tomorrow, I still would have had a really great run. So it’s sort of a win-win situation I think.

GC: What projects do have coming up?

Mark Snow: There’s a mini-series coming up called Sole Survivor, with Billy Zane in it, and that looks really great.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter Composer Registry [www.hollywoodreporter.com/registry/showcase/index.asp], 2000

??-??-2000
Film & Video Magazine
Interview with Mark Snow
Ed Eberle

I began formal piano lessons at 13, with an instructor in my Brooklyn neighborhood. I was pretty good and became even more interested in music. But I wanted to play an instrument that was more portable than a piano, the tuba or a drum kit. For some reason, I chose the oboe and stuck with it through the New York High School of Music & Arts, and later through four years at Julliard. At Julliard, I became fascinated by composers. I studied scores and listened to music constantly — but still figured the future would lead me to an oboe seat in a traditional orchestra. The music scene in New York was on fire at the time. My friend and fellow composer Michael Kamen and I started a band called The New York Rock ‘n’ Roll Ensemble. We played a combination of classical music and rock, and we managed to become kind of popular for a while.

The band experience exposed me to the commercial side of music. After Julliard, I knew about classical music, recording techniques and then added this commercial rock side. I figured the place where those interests might come together would be Hollywood. When I started, television music was not thought of as a very high calling. But still to get into the business, you had to be a bit eclectic. Music schools didn’t teach film or TV scoring. You had to come from a different musical place before you landed in a spot in the industry.

John Williams for instance, was a great jazz pianist, and Lalo Schifrin was also a great jazz player. My background was based on classics, rock and in the avant-garde scene. I headed west, where, through my wife’s sister, actress Tyne Daly, I met with Aaron Spelling Productions and started writing music for The Rookies TV show. From there I moved on to other shows, MOWs and miniseries.

Before long, innovative electronic music-making technologies like the Synclavier and other devices offered a whole new pallet for composers to work with. Versatile electronic tools seemed custom made for a new generation of composers who were anxious to explore inventive ways of scoring music for pictures.

Suddenly, we could combine all sorts of sounds and music in combinations that no one had ever heard. The idea of the professional home studio also began to take root around this same time (1985-86). Although I was a traditional composer, I knew that electronics would break the game wide open. Along with the creative comfort zone the home studio offered, I felt the potential would be unlimited.

Some composers have a technical genius with orchestras; others work better electronically. I’m very confident in the way I work and I like to think I bring a bit of both to the table. When I’m working on a score, the first moment I put my finger down on the keyboard, I’m beginning an abstract process that somehow leads me to another sound and another note.

Today’s music composition is very much about mixing live and electronic tracks. Incorporating just one live track or instrument makes a profound difference in an electronic score. That sound is exemplified by the theme for the X-Files, a score that combines a distinctive sound design, along with live and electronic instrumentation, to create a musical texture that helps define the show. I love the sound of live instruments, but the weave is something that really excites me.

How you compose music for film and television depends very much on your verbal skills and descriptive feedback from producers and directors. Some producers describe their musical idea as “fast but slow,” the director might say he wants to hear music that’s “blue with a hint of green.” Now, no one really knows what those terms mean. That’s a big part of my job; interpreting the search for a project’s musical voice. That’s fun, and when you get it right, everyone generally agrees “that’s it!” — no matter how unusual or colorful their different descriptions.

I think it’s a very interesting time to write music. Even now, after 25 years in the business, my choices in musical directions are greater than ever. At this point I can draw on all my influences and hopefully create music with a traditionally rooted sense of imagination, an eclectic personality, an honest simplicity and maybe, even a signature people can identify. I wrote four different scores for The X-Files theme before the familiar whistle opening. If I could find another set of opening notes like that, I’d be a happy composer for another 25 years.

Source: Ed Eberle; Knowledge Industry Publications [www.filmandvideomagazine.com/Htm/2000/9_00/departments/visions.htm], 2000

??-??-1999
New York Post
Keeping ’em ‘X’-cited
Dan Aquilante

MARK Snow is one of the most important contributors to the hit Fox series “The X-Files,” but he’s never appeared in an episode, never directed one and never written a single plot twist for the show’s famously bizarre stories.

Snow, a Brooklyn kid transplanted to the West Coast, is the music-driven series’ chief composer. While “The X-Files” promises that “The truth is out there” and explores the possibility of alien life on Earth, Snow is decidedly grounded in his own life.

He’s a Juilliard graduate who has written for “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” and won nine Emmys. He recently scored the upcoming Antonio Banderas film “Crazy in Alabama” and released a CD of his music, “The Snow Files.”

Post: What’s the role of music in television?

Snow: I think it should involve the audience in a plot to such a degree that viewers are unaware of how involved they actually are in the story line. At its best, music subliminally – and sometimes overtly – brings you so deeply in that you’re transported out of the reality of your living room. Unfortunately, music won’t save the day if it is a lousy TV show, but when all of the collaborative elements like the writing, the directing, the acting and the music are in sync – it’s magic.

Post: Hasn’t music always been used to enhance drama – in opera, for example, and early theater?

Snow: Sure. In the days of silent movies there was a pianist or organist playing live in the theater. If we listened to that now, it would sound kind of old-fashioned and cheap, but those were the pioneering days. In a funny way, what I do on “The X-Files” is a version of that. I have a very sophisticated electronic studio, and basically I do what those guys did: I play along with the picture. I improvise, and these improvisations become more and more defined and focused. But initially I look and I play along.

Post: It sounds as if you’re describing what the organist at Yankee Stadium does.

Snow: It is. That’s correct. If you listen to some film music without the film, it can be pretty terrible. The magic is in the marriage. That is the craft, that is the job.

Post: Your record “The Snow Files” does stand on its own, however. What makes it work?

Snow: It’s simple, really. For that album I chose material that is the most melodic and thematic. They are all songs without lyrics. “The X-Files” stuff is sort of ambient or atmospheric – it meanders and rambles a little bit, but the other tunes are very listenable.

Post: What’s the difference between what you do and what a pop songwriter does?

Snow: Great pop songs are usually very simple. There is power in that simplicity, power that reaches out and grabs you and makes you feel it. We as film composers aren’t always lucky enough to come up with compelling melodies. When we do, we have not only written a beautiful piece of music, but it also furthers the show.

Post: What is the hardest emotion to convey through music?

Snow: It’s not obvious. Take anger, jealously, sadness, happiness or remorse – those emotions are not that difficult to illustrate musically. What is difficult is neutral. If the director doesn’t have a focused picture of the scene, then you are trying to write for a non-point of view. Subtlety is the most difficult text to write for.

Post: Are there any guidelines like, strings are for love, drums connote danger, that kind of thing?

Snow: If one says, “Well, it’s a love story, so it has to be strings and piano” – that kind of thinking isn’t terribly creative. Once I spoke to Henry Mancini about this. He said when he wrote he would assign a character to a player and a sound. Like the tenor sax in the “Pink Panther” theme or the bass flutes in the “Elephant Walk.” What I am enjoying these days is the combination of all kinds of crazy ethnic sounds and world-music beat to underscore things that aren’t ethnic. Like in the movie “The Ice Storm.” The composer used Chinese gongs and percussion and a clarinet. I love that freedom to make those combinations. Sometimes when you don’t do the obvious is when it really works, and it also stands out.

Post: But surely there’s nothing wrong with using the obvious on occasion, like Chinese gongs in a Chinese temple scene.

Snow: It depends on what’s going on in the scene. Does the scene require the gong to set the place in the viewers mind, or does it need strings to set the mood of the characters emotionally?

Post: How often do you watch an episode of “The X-Files” before you start writing music.

Snow: I’ll watch a rough cut all the way through first, and that gets me thinking. When I get the final cut, I’ll start with a few small fragments of music that hopefully develop into the underscore. I get into an episode pretty quick.

Post: Are there disagreements about your musical choices?

Snow: I’ve been doing “The X-Files” going on seven years. They come over to the studio and listen to the music, and sometimes they’ll have a comment, like “We need a little more power here,” or “When the monster jumps out please hit the music a little harder.” But that’s basically it these days. But in other situations, where you are working with someone for the first time, I’m prepared for anything, including total rewrites. That’s part of the job, that’s also part of the fun. I love interpreting the abstract word musically.

Post: Have you had any “X-Files”-like experiences in your own life?

Snow: I had a home in Vermont that I sold last year. It had expansive views and it was very quiet. I was out alone one night I saw three light-type things that at first I thought were stars. But they kept coming at me in a group. They got closer and closer. It really gave me the willies. I’m looking at these things thinking, “This has got to be a joke.” To make a long story short, I know in my heart that this was something extraterrestrial. I am a believer.

Post: Do people believe you?

Snow: I don’t like to talk much about it, because people say, “Oh, bull—-, you work for ‘The X-Files,'” but it is what I saw and it is what I believe. There was no sound, there was no communicating, there was no probing, but I believe it was from outer space.

Post: Are we ready for the first contact, or would we just start shooting?

Snow: I think it’s a split. Half would shoot, half would invite the aliens over for a pastrami sandwich.