Terry Interviews Film Community
Terry speaks with filmmakers, producers and composers

 

 


 

Terry speaks to the amazing composer Fernando Velázquez about scoring the Best Film of 2010 DEVIL.

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(Photo: moviescore media)

Terry Wickham: How did the opportunity to score DEVIL come about?  You were scoring films like BACKWOODS, SHIVER and THE ORPHANAGE in Spain before it.  How did you cross over to this side of the Atlantic Ocean?
 
Fernando Velázquez:  Thanks to " The Orphanage " I got some little name. John Dowdle, the director of Devil had previously made the re-make of Spanish horror movie " Rec " aka Quarantine  and he knew my work for " The Orphanage ". He liked also " Shiver " very much ( another " classical " horror pic score I had done a couple of years before ), so he contacted me and gave me chance. I am so glad that John and the whole crew of the movie, including M. Night Shyamalan, let me in and took the risk of hiring a not-so-well-know composer. I hope I got to give them what they were looking for !!! Nowadays, you don't see always producers and directors eager to take this kind of risks !!!

 
TW:  Tell us how you created your amazing score for DEVIL.  Did Director John Dowdle or Producer M. Night Shyamalan give you any references to how they wanted your score to sound?  Or did you just create it on your own?


FV:  There were some references, of course, but overall, I just followed the narrative and " symbolic " ideas that John would give me. It was a hard work, but it was very satisfying also to realize that we were building our own narrative structure with the score. We didn't talk about " let's  make it sound like the 70´s or anything ", but we took a lot of fun using these quite " classical " musical ideas of the " avant-garde " music of the 20th century.  I am a big fun of " contemporary " music and I used the musical material in a way that composers like Bartok or Schoenberg ( forgive this comparison ) would have done it.  As the story itself has got some rules and is a little clockwork, so the score follows its patterns and develop the musical material. In fact, the whole score is based on 4 notes c-e flat-d-b, which can be played very fast and violent ( like in the opening credits ) or long and dark ( like it the " rescue " track) . This cell has got an enigmatic aura that you can trace up to the baroque music ( as in Bach and others ).   So using the right musical material you just have to build the whole structure with it. In terms of story-telling, it was great to follow the instructions of John , as he had a very clear idea of what he wanted. I am very glad that it came out to be special, but so it was the narrative material we were starting with.

 
TW:  DEVIL has a classic feel of the great thrillers from days gone past, yet it's totally modern in terms of the sound recording.  Was this combination a conscious choice


FV:  Well, I think it is just a consequence of the way we worked. Like when working in a symphonic piece, you can build a great structure with little material if you want to develop it , as it happens for instance in Beethoven's V symphony...there are four notes and with them Beethoven can create a whole movement. I enjoy myself very much working with these developing ways ( which can be classical and also from the contemporary music ). This way of working gives the score an inner coherence that can help the movie very much. I take a lot of pleasure in this " composition " process...Sometimes I follow the rules I put to myself, sometimes I don't... About the production of the score, we always thought that this kind of composition can nothing but win if produced in a modern way. The musical production of Steve McLaughin ( producer of Ilan Eskehri and Michael Kamen, among many others ) was crucial to make all this happen. 

 
TW:  I really appreciated that your score was subtle with ambiance and then you put the hammer down and struck with orchestral force at other times.  How did you develop this kind of powerful approach?

FV:  I just followed what the story needed and the instructions of John....In a way, sometimes the music gets as violent as the people get inside the elevator. The music is just feeling as threatened as the five people trapped....and in a way it is also like a subtle voice that is bolstering anger and hatred...I have always thought that an orchestra is a great mean with which we can express  this anger...and that is also why I conducted the sessions, as I have always believed that this energy must be present all the time, for the violent moments as well as for the subtle. I try never to forget that music is magic, specially in the moment we record them . That is why I do my best to convey this energies coming from the script, the acting, the editing and the directing to put them together and help the film to be the best it can be...it such a great thrill and such a pleasure to do it !!!!