Longitude Sound Bytes
Ep 129: Language as Consciousness (Listen)

Bilge Arslan
Yale-NUS College
Singapore (1.3° N, 103.8° E)

featuring Nigel Levy, Series Editor, Producer/Director, Writer/Story Consultant, Leviathan Films Ltd, London (51.5° N, 0.1° W)

Nigel Levy is a series editor, director/producer, and story consultant. He has been involved in the creation of many productions including a drama movie titled “Mothers and Daughters” and numerous documentaries on a wide range of topics around nature, history, arts, and science such as “The Da Vinci Detective,” “Titanic: Case Closed,” “Natural World,” and “Fatal Attractions.”

Nigel majored in physics in college and then received a post-graduate degree in philosophy and history. “I had to devise my own path into the media” he says, through the specific course he chose strategically because liberal arts education was not possible then in the British system. “Luckily, it seems I discovered how useful [this post-graduate path] would be before everyone else,” he adds. In fact, this post-graduate degree he pursued later transformed into a subject that prepares graduates to work in the media sector. According to Nigel, being the first is a big part of being successful.

Even though what I learned from my truly interesting and rich conversation with Nigel goes beyond filmmaking, in this reflection essay, I will focus on some of the essential aspects of filmmaking, and particularly storytelling, which I grouped under five categories.

I enjoy writing in my free time. I write articles for my school’s website as a Public Affairs Student Associate at Yale-NUS College and about my travels and life in Singapore for my online blog. Writing has taught me the importance as well as the difficulty of storytelling, which I ponder about a lot. Furthermore, I always look for opportunities to explore storytelling through other means such as podcasts, filmmaking, music, and dance. Talking to Nigel allowed me to realize that storytelling is relevant to the lives of most of us in a broader sense and is much more than a “tool” for certain professions. Similarly, filmmaking has certain components that provide valuable insight for other fields as well as our everyday lives where we always tell, hear, and share stories. Therefore, the ideas Nigel conveyed to me are worth reflecting on to better understand even if you are not interested in filmmaking or don’t consider a career in this field.

1. Having an Argument

When I first learned that Nigel is a story consultant, I was very excited to explore more about this area. In my head, the role is like being a surgeon with a doctor gown on, a surgical instrument in hand, and working with utmost prudence. But instead of operating on humans, Nigel “treats” or even “saves the lives” of stories. In other words, film producers and directors consult him for stories that don’t “work.” The analogy might sound like a little exaggerated but forming and “fixing” stories is no easy task. Nigel says that people get intrigued or fascinated by something and this makes them very excited to tell a story. Nevertheless, the fact that something interesting has happened is not alone helpful enough to write a compelling story, he further remarks. The key element that is missing is the argument. Argument has the power to give life to an idea or a topic and transform it into a meaningful and logical story.

The argument is about the way you choose to tell the story to others. How do you strategize about bringing different pieces of information together? Which parts of the story you put more emphasis on? How do you arrange these distinct parts? These questions help with the construction of the argument, and disparate arguments can show the same story in completely different ways by “changing the nature of what you are saying about it.”

2. Being Flexible

The vast ocean of possibilities of how to tell a story brings us to another crucial element of storytelling: flexibility. Nigel points out the wrong mindset of having “a restricted vision about what the correct version of the film should be.” This limits the flexibility of seeing “all the stories that you could tell from the material,” he believes. If you don’t get out of your comfort zone and think outside the box, i.e., if you are fixated on telling the version of the story you are most comfortable with, this significantly restricts the endless pathways you can take and thus creativity. Being flexible is vital to keep the options open, which provides more room for creativity. The next step is then to understand the narrative technique that allows you to focus down those elements to strong, singular point of view. “If you have a broader understanding of how the story works, you don’t necessarily have to make any changes to the nature of what you have chosen to film. You are just saying something different about it,” he elaborates.

3. Problem-Solving (Under Time Constraints)

One of my favorite ideas that Nigel mentioned in the interview is that “filmmaking is about solving problems constantly.” This point also ties back to the importance of flexibility. The reality is that things might not go as planned in filmmaking just like in any other project. Thus, working on the story and thinking through various versions thoroughly contribute to quick adaptability in case unexpected situations arise. For instance, the booking of a venue might get cancelled, one of the actors or actresses may fall sick, or weather conditions can prevent the shooting of a scene on time. One ought to be open to different plans and switch between various options rapidly. Nonetheless, constraints also become opportunities to generate creative solutions by making us push our boundaries. Nigel echoes this point as that problem-solving turns into the creative process of filmmaking itself.

4. Communication and Teamwork

According to Nigel, teamwork is the most important aspect of filmmaking. Most of the effort goes into obtaining the final product through not only individual work but also  collaboration and cooperation. From the perspective of the storyteller, Nigel thinks that communication with the rest of the team is key. He says that effective communication of the steps to achieve the best possible story under a time constraint is very important. Therefore, the leader of the production–whether as a director on location or story consultant–should not only have a clear road map in mind but also be able to explain its logical steps to channel the available resources as well as the energy and focus of the group to follow this strategy. “People you are [working with need to] know exactly why you have made the choices that you have,” says Nigel. Otherwise, it is very hard to focus everyone’s attention to agree on a plan and get the work done. Nigel further posits that “worry and panic reduces…creativity.” That is why, through their confidence and good communication skills, the role of a filmmaker is also to make the team feel calm to work comfortably under time constraints.

5. Combination of Instinct and Technique

I think one of the misconceptions I had about filmmaking before talking to Nigel was that the storytelling part is mostly about calling on the inner muse and a more instinctual process. Nigel indicates that he has been working on a story for years to explore what makes a documentary meaningful and powerful. “I realized how technical and complex storytelling is,” he says. That is why his extensive knowledge of the story allows Nigel to help others structure stories, which has become “almost second-nature” to him. I have understood that merely putting faith in inspiration and instinct might not be enough to overcome the obstacles in the way of engrossing storytelling. As Nigel puts it, there might not be enough time to re-dream the story if the version that one imagines is not working. “…Whereas if you have an analytical side to you, you can be as creative and imaginative as you like and stand back from it objectively,” he elaborates.

Being equipped with analytical and technical tools also contributes to flexibility in terms of having a broad palette of stories. For Nigel, the technical side of storytelling is more about figuring out the fundamentals through which the mind approaches problems, which goes back to the parallel between problem-solving and filmmaking.

Even though Nigel had always been passionate about filmmaking since he was a child, he had not had a background in the field when he started working as an assistant producer at the science department of BBC. He started by writing letters to people in the sector whose names appeared at the very end of good documentaries he watched. He justified his capabilities by talking about his interest in and broad knowledge of a wide range of topics. In that sense, being passionate about diverse and sometimes uncommon areas and having an idea about different subjects is what makes everyone unique. For me, being an interesting person with a strong intellectual curiosity is not only a crucial asset for an individual but also an enriching, impactful, and empowering way of life.

Highlights from the interview:

What led you to story consulting, and what does that entail?

I always try to make my documentaries meaningful but it was not always obvious how to bring that to a film. It’s not necessarily the subject matter, but the meaning also comes from how the story is told, it’s the underlying argument. The methods behind this became clearer to me as I was constantly making documentaries in different formats about various people in history, arts, and science. In the past two or three years, all the work I’ve been doing on storytelling has become a stronger element of what I do. Because I spent a long time studying the stories, it became almost second-nature to me to be able to structure stories. I realized how technical and complex it is, and how many people in the business, even though they can make very good programs, don’t have that kind of knowledge of the story. They can do it instinctively, but it’s very scattered. My knowledge was clearly laid out and very thorough. So, I started being asked to help programs that weren’t working. Very good filmmakers who were trying to make a film got to the point where it wasn’t working. Because of the training I’ve given myself, I could spot and fix things for them. So, that’s how I became a story consultant. I’m also a producer, writer, director and a series editor. A series editor looks after the editorial and the storytelling of the series, what goes on in post-production, and some of pre-production as well. It’s very similar to being a series producer; the lines are very blurry [among these positions].

Did you envision yourself being in one of these roles when you were young?

It’s the first thing I imagined. I think you come back to what you like when you’re really young. I really think that you know what you want to do when you’re 8 or 9. And then, part of you thinks it’s impossible and sometimes you think maybe you can do it. Then you end up working your way back to the [career] you really like in some form.

What kind of skills are helpful in directing and creating films? Did your college years actually prepare for you for this?

Directing, writing, and producing in the media are completely about the individual. A director should be able to clearly communicate [with others]. If you can’t tell people what you want, you’ll never be able to do anything. If you can express your ideas in a way that considers other people’s current knowledge and their emotional state and desires, then you’ll become a good director. Writing is more of a solo skill; it is more technical. You practice until you develop your own skills, methods, and techniques. Directing itself has technical aspects to it. But since you collaborate with others, even if you have no technical ability, you can pass the [technical work] off to your collaborators.  The director’s job is to make things happen. You can decide what areas you want to become technically proficient in. I like learning technical skills. So, when I learned to direct, I taught myself highly technical processes because I enjoyed [learning] and it gives you something to fall back on. It’s the same with storytelling; it’s highly technical for me, but I find that reassuring.

You are more analytical the way you direct or create stories. There are some things, I don’t want to say rules because it’s obviously a creative process, more rational maybe?

They’re not, there’s two sides of it. One side is completely instinctive, but there is a problem when the instinct doesn’t work. I love being instinctive, but then you have to look at what you create and realize that it’s not working. In that case, instinct won’t get you out of the problem; it helps you create something, but it isn’t that useful to fix what you’ve created because you felt it so deeply and you imagined it and dreamt about it. If it doesn’t work, what do you do, do you re-dream it or re-imagine it? That can be a very long-winded process. You have to keep reconstructing it. Whereas, if you have an analytical side, you can be as creative and imaginative as you like and then be able to stand back from it objectively and understand the fundamentals. So, they’re not rules; they’re fundamentals by the nature of how the mind understands problems.

How do you start contacting people who can provide information or planning huge projects where sometimes you need to uncover things from the past like the Titanic?

It’s complicated. You have to have a very clear sense of the message that you want to convey whatever the subject matter is. That really helps you organize the material. It’s about the argument you’re making. It has to be slightly broader because there are pluses and minuses to that statement; so, it allows you to tell a better story. Everything that you say and every piece of information you get is built around that concept. As you refine the concept, the elements that you need are [automatically] decided for you.

It’s the same in drama and documentaries. You have to have an argument. In real life, people forget there is an argument because they get intrigued by something and they list all the things they’re interested in. But you’d never get away with that when writing a paper or making a compelling story if it’s meaningless. It’s not enough that it’s intriguing, or it [has actually] happened. You have to have a controlling idea behind what you’re trying to say. 

How it is different to tell the stories of animals than of humans?

When I tell animal stories, my interest is always in the relationship between the human and the animal. The problem is to find a meaningful story, a meaningful argument. You have to have a way of making an argument about the nature of things, which you can then apply to the animal. Technically, natural history programming relies on how they film things; so, people see them in ways they haven’t seen before. They also rely on the relevance imparted by the commentary or the charisma of the presenter. You want it to actually tell a story but not anthropomorphize the animals and give them characteristics they don’t possess. A lot of the natural history people and producers I’ve worked with realize that storytelling is probably the weakest part. They can shoot stunning footage in amazing locations, but often when they put it together, it doesn’t really tell a story. “Fatal Attractions” was all about why people choose to live with animals that could kill them. You know you need to show the animal behavior but it should be in the context that what the animal gives to humans.

Do you think we can come close to shooting their lives from their own perspective? Through film?

You have to look at the animal behavior and understand it for what it is and show it accurately, without implying there is anything beyond the animal’s motivation but you can make it inherently dramatic.

I saw a couple of episodes of Netflix docuseries on Formula One [Drive to Survive]. It was so fascinating to see the stories of the teams and individual drivers but also the organization as a whole. What was your role in that series, how did you get involved?

People were editing the stories but some of the stories weren’t really working. I worked with some people to find the best story to tell. It was very hard to film because we didn’t know what the stories would be. They had access to places that you wouldn’t normally have, but they weren’t necessarily given all the access to the characters. So, they filmed what they could, and then they attempted to back it in the edit, and other people attempted to make stories out of that material. What I brought to that [project] was to determine the stories that didn’t work, good stories to tell out of the material we had, and different techniques that can be used. I also added strong storytelling and made sure that it was done in the limited time we had.

How do the time constraints affect your creativity?

If you start a project with good technical knowledge, it helps. If you rely only on your instincts, the only solution to making it work is to spend longer time on it. When I have a short period of time, what I can bring to that process is the technical knowledge to say that I can help make the best story by this time. I will explain to people why this is the best we can do; this solution is the best possible one considering the material, facilities, and the money we have. The more clearly you explain how you come to your conclusion, the much more pleasant the experience will be. You don’t want people to get worried because worry and panic reduce creativity. By making people relax, you allow them to be more creative.

Do you think there are any misconceptions about filming in general or documentary filming?

The biggest misconception is that people say “I’ve got this great idea for this documentary.” The [idea] may be interesting but it may not be a story, or if anyone would be interested. There is a huge leap between something that’s fairly interesting and a story. Most people don’t realize that.

Do you have any specific comments about teamwork in filmmaking?

It’s the most important thing. When you’re making a film, teamwork is absolutely everything and you should never complain because filmmaking is about solving problems constantly. You have to try and find a solution that works. So, there’s absolutely no value to point out the problem that is frustrating. Everyone should be trying to find a way of either using it to their advantage or solving it.

It sounds like a general advice for life, not only filmmaking. 

In real life, you have more time to analyze [the situation]. In filmmaking, when you’re filming, you have a day in which you have to get stuff done. So, you can’t really take a huge amount of time to pause and think. You have to find a different way of doing it to make it work. 

Do you have any advice for students who want to work in the film industry or documentary making?

There are two things they can do. What I did was to see all the really good documentaries and note the names of the people who made them listed at the end of the program and found out who they were and wrote to them. That’s how I got into the BBC. Another [advice] is to remember that being good will not necessarily make you successful. It’s important to understand that a successful career involves more than being good in what you do. The relationships you build up with people, how you present yourself and of course luck, are equally important.

It’s important to be interested in many different areas to have something interesting to say. If you show people that you have an opinion and a really broad and unusual range of interests, that could make you an interesting person to make programs if someone’s looking for someone interesting. Because it shows that you’re intellectually curious. However, remember that people who aren’t intellectually curious can also be successful. They focus on a narrow area of interest, but explore it deeply and perhaps, with luck, it is successful with a wide audience.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee. This article only aims to share personal opinions and learnings and does not constitute the interviewee’s current or former employer(s)’ position on any of the topics discussed.

]]> https://longitude.site/composers-in-the-contemporary-art-world/ Thu, 17 Jan 2019 18:38:58 +0000 http://longitude.site/?p=1453

Molly Turner
Rice University
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Ross Williams, Assistant Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (1.3° N, 103.8° E)

Before coming to Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), Ross Williams was the senior lead instructor in audio production and post-production in the Digital Film and Interactive Media Departments at the Art Institute of New York City. He completed his master’s degree and doctorate in musical arts at Rice University in Houston, Texas. An Australian-born sound designer and composer, Ross has composed music and designed sound for theatre, museum installations, and award-winning independent feature and short films, as well as numerous concert works. His work can be found at fluidsound.com and Vimeo @rossawilliams.

I called Ross while he was in Singapore and I was back home in Seattle. Turns out, we both privately studied with the same professor, Dr. Gottschalk. But besides that, I didn’t know what to expect because he is a professor at a technology institute, not a music conservatory—that is, he is following a nontraditional path for a composer. We first talked about his background in Australia and his introductions to music, then we covered more professional topics like his graduate training at Rice, finding his first jobs, and the projects he’s working on now. We also bonded over bigger picture questions that ask what it means to be a composer or artist and how one finds meaning and work in a field that doesn’t have a set path.

Ross’s time after Rice shows an evolution from the traditional path as a concert composer. Ross was lucky enough to attend Rice to acquire traditional training and great connections, but he stated multiple times he didn’t want to be an “academic composer” or a traditional composer who finds their residency through a university. So, after graduation, he found other outlets for his creativity. He didn’t want to pay an orchestra a whole year’s paycheck to play his piece, so he learned how to mock up orchestras through sound libraries and MIDI playback. Long gone are the monarchy funded orchestras that sponsored many of Mozart’s and Haydn’s works; Ross had to teach himself technological skills and new ways to apply his musical training. He knew he wanted to collaborate with other artists, especially videographers, because he wanted his music to be combined with other types of art. This led him to independent short movies, museums, and audio production.

After he realized he wanted to collaborate, he transitioned into some sound design, which has many connections to music composition. And through his time at the Art Institute and lots of freelancing, Ross acquired a multifaceted career as a sound designer, teacher, composer, and artistic collaborator. Now, at his job in Singapore at Nanyang Technological University, he’s doing even more multidisciplinary projects. With his sound design background, he has been working on a volcano infrasound project well outside his designated role as just a sound designer.

Ross’s career path goes to show the tremendous changes the art world has made over the past century, even the past decades. Fifty years ago, before computers and the internet age, composers would go to school to learn to how to write concert orchestra music with pencil and paper, which was very much in the tradition of Beethoven and Mozart. Both Ross’s and my education reflect this tradition. We both learned orchestration techniques, traditional counterpoint and harmony, and how to write for the concert hall. But the concert hall is changing. Only a small demographic listens to classical music, and an even smaller crowd listens to contemporary classical music. It was really inspiring to hear that even though our careers as composers are rooted in the tradition of slow-moving trends, it’s possible in the twenty-first century to break from these trends by working in newly created fields related to our work such as sound design, multidisciplinary collaboration, and museum installations. Composers don’t compose by themselves at a desk and wait for their pieces to be performed; nowadays, they connect with other artists, use their background with sound to cross disciplines, and create music that is relevant to today’s audiences.

Highlights from the Interview

You grew up in Australia. What is the music education like and how did you get introduced to all of that?

Although my parents weren’t musical per se, they very much encouraged us to play instruments. I remember distinctly when I was five or six, my mom said, “Do you want to learn the piano?” and I was like, “Yeah, all right, whatever.” So I started piano lessons when I was pretty young. When I was ten, I was tested for musical facility, and I was recommended to learn another instrument, so I started learning trumpet. The instrument and the lessons were all provided part of the school curriculum. In Australia, certainly when I was growing up, we had sort of specific schools that were public schools that were target schools for music, where they had big programs. The high school I went into wasn’t a target school at that stage. Apparently it is now, but it wasn’t then. So we had no strings, so there wasn’t any possibility of doing strings; it was just basically concert band stuff, woodwinds and things. I played in concert bands all the way through high school. Australia’s generally like that. I mean if you go to private school, of course, then you get all the bells and whistles and orchestras and whatever you want. But in the public schools, specific ones might have string programs but many of them will not because they’re expensive.

Was your undergraduate degree in composition and trumpet?

I never had any intention of studying music at a high level. I originally started in biotechnology doing genetics, but when I realized biotech wasn’t for me, I took a one-year course in music at the conservatory of music as a trumpet major. I thought, “All right, this is cool. I like it. Let’s see where it goes.” I enrolled in the music education program and found out that they were starting a composition program, so I switched immediately to composition. So I never actually did trumpet as part of my bachelor’s; I was only a composer from then on.

How did you hear about Rice?

The teacher I started studying with asked, “What are you going to do when you graduate?” And I’m like, “I dunno,” like everybody does who does composing. So he said, “Have you thought about studying for your next degree in the US?” And I was like, “Eh not really, but why not? Let’s think about it.” So I applied to a number of places on his recommendations, and Rice was one that I got accepted into. When I got to Rice, I was like, “Wow! That’s an amazing building.” And it took me only a little while to realize how lucky I’d gotten getting into Rice as opposed to maybe some of the other places I may have gone to.

I looked at some of your work, and I was just wondering if you were doing all of those video collaborations and multi-media work at your time at Rice?

No, not really. When I was at Rice, I was just composing. I came from a background of a lot of electronic—not electronic music in terms of pop compositions stuff but as in I had bands in high school, and I was the keyboard player—and I grew up with computers. My dad built a computer in 1978 so I always had sort of tech side of things going on, but I never liked to use any of that in my music while I was in Rice. I have a bit of an aversion to any sort of electronic music, really, in certain contexts. If I’m going to a concert, I want to see people moving; I don’t want to hear buttons.

When I got out of Rice and I got my first teaching job, it was in a multimedia program. I was teaching sound. And, actually, going back one step, when I was at Rice doing my doctorate, Professor Gottschalk was teaching at a place called the Art Institute of Houston. He was teaching a sound course. He stopped doing it and asked, “Would you like to take over this course for me?” And I’m like, “All right, whatever.” So I taught about a year and a half there, and then I went to New York. They were starting that same program, so I just fell into that job there. I’ve only taught in media, and now I teach film.

When I left Rice, I only had a portfolio of just regular concert music. I built a whole other career that’s peripheral to what I studied, although related in a lot of ways. Because on some levels, sound is sound whether it’s music or anything else. When you’re organizing sound in space and time, then there are certain concepts that cross over all of them. While I was in New York, I met a lot of people who wanted music for things or sound design for things. So I just kept getting asked, “Can you do this?” Or I did some theater stuff, or I did some other things. So then when I met all these people, image people, were like, “Can we collaborate?” and I’m like, “Sure.” So I just end up doing these things based on relationships and then contacts and then people heard something and asked me to do it, and then I slipped more into film.

The problem I had as a composer for a long time, and I still have a little bit, is if I’m writing concert music, I always ask, “Why am I doing this? For who am I doing this?” I’ve got a little burned out. I didn’t want to be an academic composer. I didn’t want to write music for other composers. Why write something purely on it’s own anymore? Mind you, if someone said, “Hey Ross, write me an orchestra piece.” I’d be like, “Absolutely.” I would do it. But those things don’t happen. Least not—especially if you’ve chosen the path I’m on.

Sounds like you are “the” sound guy at the Nanyang University.

Anytime there’s a mention of the word “sound,” everyone looks at me. Which is cool in the sense that I just submitted a paper to a big journal on volcano infrasound that I did some work with some volcanologists on processing their infrasound so they can detect volcanoes more accurately, which is very peripheral. It started off with just a “Hey you’re a sound guy. I work with infrasound. Can you listen to this stuff and let’s chat.” And I’m listening to it, and I’m like, “This sounds horrible. Let me clean it up for you.” And they’re like, “Woah!” And that led to this whole research project. So that’s been fun, because if I was only writing music I think I’d get a little nuts, but if I was only doing non-music I’d get nuts. If I’m writing music, I’m always thinking, “I’m glad when this music’s done so I can do something else.” But then when I’m doing something else, I’m like, “I really feel like I should be writing music.” So I like that I have the freedom to do one or the other. The only problem is, of course, you get pigeonholed. You can’t be good at either of them because you’re doing two things.

It was really exciting to hear that you did a project where you had complete artistic freedom, because my impression is that rarely happens.

That’s the good thing about academia is I can just do. I take projects or leave them. I’m not required to do them. I don’t have to feed my family based on the outcome of them. Not all of them, of course. Some of them I have battles with directors—more purely narrative films will go into battle over certain pieces of music or the way that they’re written. The funny thing is, I’m almost always battling, telling them not to use music. I’m always like, “You don’t need music in this part of the film.” Because there’s a tendency for overuse of music in general; from my aesthetic, it’s used way too much. And the effectiveness of the music is diminished. The more you have, the less effective it is.

You learned all of these notation things in grad school, and how to write an orchestra piece, and what instruments are. But now when you do all of these multimedia things, how do you acquire the skills to learn Pro Tools or learn Logic? Is that you at the computer figuring it out?

It’s funny, I joke with all my students. I tell them I’ve never had a film sound class. I’ve never had any class on what I teach my students. I suffer like all of us do, me maybe more than some, with the imposter syndrome. You know, I’ve never taken a specific class in this subject that I’m now teaching you. But I’ve been, the last twelve years, working in it and reading papers and going to conferences and all those other things. But yeah, it’s all self-taught on some level. That’s sort of going back to composition. I’ve always loved orchestra and orchestration, and sound design for film is essentially an orchestration or activity on some levels. Am I adding wind here or something there. I’m trying to affect your emotional state or direct you in an emotional state or direct you in a certain way, which is very much what we do in an orchestra. So there’s a parallel there, at certain levels, of the skill set I think have brought across. When I say that no one taught me what I’m doing, that’s not 100 percent true. I took orchestration classes. Although they weren’t directed at that specific outcome, there’s an aesthetic or a sensitivity that you develop through that process that comes to bear on other things.

I think I’ve always been reasonably good at picking stuff up. Like we all do. You know if someone says—as a composer especially, as you probably know, you never say no to anything. If someone says, “Can you do this?” You always say, “Yeah.” And then you say, “How am I going do this?” and then you work it out or you get some help. So that was sort of how my entire life has gone, I think. I should have said no to a few more things, but—well, actually, that’s not true. Keep saying yes and then it forces you into places that you might not have wanted to go. And then sometimes you go, and you’re like, “Eh, that maybe wasn’t worth the while, but that’s all right.” And then you’ve done something else.

It does mean a lot of background research. Like I don’t have a background in volcanology, and I’m never going to acquire a background in volcanology. Though I need to know just enough of these certain things to be able to apply. But also, you can have ideas that you don’t have to execute—that’s another thing. You can have an idea and say, “Why don’t we try this?” And you don’t know how to do it, but that’s where you get somebody else to help you with it. And that’s something—as composers, we are very used to being very solitary. We do it, we write it, we notate it. 

The genius of you sitting at the desk and penciling it out…

It can be a little lonely. I still like to do that. I’m writing a string quartet right now, which is going to be actually one of my first concert pieces for ages. It’s going to be that, and it’s going to be mixed media in the sense that the sound from the quartet would control images behind the quartet, but there’s no processing of the quartet. It’s just a regular quartet. And this is the first one I’ve written for ages, and I’m lonely writing it. I’m still looking around—like pencil and paper and doing my stuff—and thinking there’s nobody to bounce this idea off of. That’s good on some levels because it forces you back into that world of writing music. I still like writing with pencil and paper…in this case a little keyboard. Even though I’ve got all the gear to realize it digitally, if I want to, I try to hold that off until it’s mostly written.

At the end of the day, nobody cares how you wrote the music if they like the piece. That’s the thing. I think, as the student especially, it’s valuable. But I don’t know if they’re doing it yet—maybe they are at Rice—but it’s a hugely important skill to be able to do really good mock-ups of any special orchestral pieces. To be able to realize them with modern sample libraries, which is pretty extraordinary. Being able to mock up your pieces is hugely useful. Because, let’s face it, we are heading down a path where more and more of the music you hear is going to be sample-based. I mean you go to an orchestra—all right, that’s going to be an orchestra.

Can you talk a little bit about how you ended up in Singapore? Because I think that’s crazy.

After I left Rice, I had one year left on my student visa so I went to New York with my friend Bram who was also at Rice. I was working as a waiter and trying to work out what I wanted to do. The art institute I had worked at in Houston started one in New York, so they needed somebody to teach. That got me into a teaching job. Eventually I became full-time and they got me visas. So I spent a lot of years there working and developing the film side and the multimedia side of my music and sound design and all that sort of things. Later, when they were closing that school, I went online and looked for jobs. There was a job at the Berklee College of Music of music in music production and composition, which I was shortlisted for and I almost got that one. Fortunately I didn’t because if I had gotten it, I probably would have taken it even though it didn’t pay very well. Then I saw the Singapore job online—and it was one of those rare ones where you look at everything they ask for and it was everything that I was doing. In New York I was a founding instructor in their film department, so I helped write the curriculum and all that, and they were looking for someone to revamp their curriculum here from the sound part. I just hit all the right things, and then obviously…also having a doctorate from Rice did not hurt at all…There’s a lot of people who work at sound for film who don’t have a PhD or DMA. I mean, there’s probably more now…but certainly, not many with as much practical experience as I’ve had as well. And my sister was living in Singapore. She had been for the last twenty-five years. So I knew it well, so I was like, “All right, I like Singapore.” It’s on the equator so it’s never winter. And it’s only five hours from my home in Perth. It was attractive on a lot of levels. Singapore is a young county and they’re really only recently developing their creative arts, so it was an interesting place. The film creative area is growing, establishing itself so it was sort of fun to be part of that process, and then the money is really much better too, as well. They pay quite well. The sad thing in the US is that most of the faculty type jobs, unless you’re in one of the big schools, do not pay well.

What advice would you give to yourself when you were college age?

I think the only advice I would give is try not to say no to anything. I’ve always had good friends and good colleagues so opportunities seem to pop up here and there. But opportunities also come through connections you make and just being easy to work with and also doing good work. So I would say to try to look at what you actually want to do, because you’ve got to be realistic. Like I had no intention—even when I was finishing my doctorate, I knew that I wasn’t going to be an academic composer. I knew that I wasn’t going to get a job in a university as a composer.

I think maybe I applied for one or two things as I left, but I knew that for various reasons…I think I wasn’t strong enough on the theory side of things. I had no problem with my actual music writing, but I wasn’t a natural theorist. I’m a pretty crap conductor. So I was like, “You know what, let me work on my strengths.” So I think having sort of a clear idea of where you might want to go is important. As we know with music…I often joke with this friend of mine…The thing about music is that if every composer in the world stopped writing music right now, nobody in the world would know. Nobody would know for…who knows how long, nobody would know. And that’s not to say that what we’re doing doesn’t have value, but it says in the pecking order of things, it’s a fairly rarified life that an academic composer gets to enjoy. And those positions, there aren’t very many of them, so if you want that then think about all the things you need to get there. You’ve got to be going to competition after competition after competition. You’ve got to be really, really great at all your theory and maybe conducting. You’ve got to know people. All of those things. It’s all right to do all of those things, but you’ve got to do those at the very beginning. That was something at Rice, I think, that was maybe lacking a little bit, that discussion. How are you going to get that first job, and what is that first job going to be? Because the first job is the big one, because that tends to be where you end up moving in terms of your first professional job in your field. Where I ended up working, well, sure enough, I ended up staying within that lane, or branched out,. Had I got the job, say, at Berklee instead of here, then I would have probably shelved all the sound design stuff and had to go purely into music again. I don’t know if I would have been happy doing that. But that’s sort of a complicated answer now. We’re all different, and it’s a super glib and easy thing to say to do what makes you happy. But happiness is not guaranteed by anybody. I’ve always been lucky in the sense that my happiness is not derived from what I do. It’s derived from just being alive and having a family and that kind of stuff, so I could have been happy probably doing a bunch of other things too. I’m lucky I wrangled it somewhere.

(Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.)