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COMPOSER NIGEL WESTLAKE, DIRECTOR JOHN WEILEY, AND SOLARMAX
By Tony Buchsbaum
It's only April as I write this, and I may very well have discovered the score
of the year. It's big, powerful, melodic, and as thrilling a score as I've heard
in years. The film is SOLARMAX, and every note of its score camefrom a man I'd
never heard of before: Nigel Westlake.
An Imax film directed by John Weiley and being shown around the country now, SOLARMAX
is a 40-minute film about the sun's effects on our culture over the last several
thousand years. It's got state-of-the-art CGI work, never-before-seen images shot
in space, and a sweep that includes ancient Ireland, the Vikings, Copernicus,
Galileo, and other notable thinkers. It's also got a huge format, which makes
every moment both literally and figuratively oversized.
Best of all, it has its incredible, exuberant score. It's symphonic, primitive,
at times heart-stopping - and the moment I heard it, I knew I wanted to know more
about it. Recently, I was lucky enough to track down both the film's composer
and director on the Internet, and conducted interviews with them via e-mail.
Nigel Westlake attended the Conservatorium of Music High School in Sydney, Australia,
but left early to pursue a career as a clarinetist. He started composing and formed
a band, so his work could be performed. His big break came from Weiley, who needed
someone to score his Imax film ANTARCTICA.
Buchsbaum: What's your working relationship like?
Westlake: It's never been easy. John invests a lot more trust in me these days,
but he's still very hands-on when discussing the direction of the compositional
process. He speaks in metaphors, abstractions, riddles, and emotions. And he delights
in pushing the barriers. He has an insatiable thirst for knowledge and exploration,
and working beside him one becomes consumed by the thrill of discovery and the
relentless quest for truth. He loves to re-invent the wheel at every opportunity,
and the more original and dangerous the music becomes, the more excited he gets.
Working with John is often an enormous challenge, but at the end of the day it
is an immensely rewarding experience.
Weiley: I always liked the idea of involving the composer from the beginning of
the process, and I have talked to Nigel in general terms about each film before
shooting. This was typically a year or more before he got to see anything. I will
at that stage sometimes talk about the broad musical approach - instruments and
so on.
Westlake: Like any good director, he can also be infuriating! Several times now
we have spent literally weeks working up a particularly difficult cue, and even
after recording the piece, he will decide that it is wrong, and we must
start again, completely from scratch. (Of course he's always right - damn it!)
Weiley: I depend on music throughout the shooting and editing to give coherence
and pacing and eventually structure to the work. I often time shots or camera
movements by singing themes or phrases that seem appropriate. During editing this
dependence is even more explicit: [My editor] and I will try various pieces of
music first, and when we find something that seems right, cut the sequence to
that piece of music. We never inflict the guide music on Nigel, and he goes out
of his way to avoid hearing it.
Buchsbaum: Nigel, do you lean toward Imax projects because of personal connections
to the filmmakers - or does Imax simply give you a much larger canvas to work
in?
Westlake: There seems to be a general trend in Imax films to abuse the power of
the format. Very few directors are capable of showing restraint. John is one of
the few directors who actually understand the power and also the fact that a compelling
piece of work must have contrast and subtleties in order to engage the audience
and have them emerge from the experience with a sense of wonder and fulfillment
instead of feeling shell-shocked. Musically, it requires ideas that are simple
and economical. It’s important that the score is not overly burdened with
busy, detailed orchestration. It must be clearly understood on first listening
because most people will only ever see it once. I think of it in terms of working
with broad brush strokes as opposed to detailed line drawing.
Buchsbaum: Because you and John work so closely together, did you compose themes
for the film ahead of time - or did you wait until there was a final cut?
Westlake: John spoke to me about SOLARMAX well before he was into pre-production.
Right through the shoot he was throwing me snippets of information and got me
thinking about the score. There was never a storyboard or synopsis, and I knew
the form of the film wouldn't start to gel until all the rushes had been viewed
and they were well into the editing, so I didn't start writing until I got the
fine cut.
Buchsbaum: Nigel's music for SOLARMAX, aside from its beauty on many levels seems
more like a narrative-film score than it does a documentary-film score. John,
was this part of your direction? Or is that simply just how it turned out?
Weiley: I do not cut my films to fit any preconceived narration or structure.
We cut to make “emotional sense”. Phrases for a narration go
through my head all the time - even when I am shooting - but I never allow the
words to determine the structure. I regard the narration as lyrics. The images,
sound effects, and music are the “music” to which I have to write.
I never write the narration until everything else is finished. This turns the
writing into a real brain buster, and I don't recommend the technique to anyone
who values sanity or sleep but it is the way I have to do it.
For me music is the transcendent art, and composing music the most sublime of
human activities: It really is stealing from the angels. I often say, only half
jokingly, that I only shoot the pictures so that people will have something to
look at while they listen to Nigel's music. I like making Imax movies because
they are a kind of throw-back to “silent” movies: For technical reasons,
it's practically impossible to shoot sync sound, so we don't have to shoot what
Hitchcock called (and despised) "people chattering." Silent movies have
to be constructed like music. Themes have to be introduced, developed, and resolved,
rhythms established, and so on.
Buchsbaum: I think the distinctive thing about the SOLARMAX score is the scope
of it. It nimbly moves easily from intimate little motifs to grand moments that
seem as big as the universe.
Westlake: The film covers mankind's relationship with the sun from a religious
and scientific perspective from the dawn of time to the present day and beyond.
It's an ambitious amount of subject matter to cover in 40 minutes, and of course
the music's role was to support these concepts and provide an underlying continuity.
Buchsbaum: John, do you and Nigel spot the film together? Do you come to him with
musical ideas, or do you more or less let him run wild and surprise you?
Weiley: We do spot the film together, but I try very hard to avoid being too explicit
- I want the music to be an original voice - so I drop hints, talk in generalities
and “poetic hyperbole”. We do not in fact spend a lot of time
on spotting: This bit is quite quick. Nigel is, in one sense, a superb instrument:
If I am clear about what I am trying to do and I get the words right at this stage,
then music that is astonishingly appropriate but at the same time original comes
back right away. His facility for being able to turn a director’s waffle
about what the music must do into original, effective music is almost uncanny.
The really sublime moments come for me when Nigel picks up on a theme that I have
buried quite deeply in the images and been unable to articulate but have hoped
against hope would somehow find its way through into the consciousness of the
audience. If I had to nominate a single reason for continuing to work with Nigel,
that capacity for getting beneath the surface would be it.
Buchsbaum: That said, Nigel, you tried to evoke deep, cultural feelings for certain
sections of the film. "First Light," for example, is filled with Irish
sounds. But more than that, the idea of wind instruments symbolizes the movement
of the sunlight through the perfect alignment of Newgrange, just as breath moves
through the flute.
Westlake: The breath analogy is a nice one and something that hadn't even occurred
to me. Although this cue is probably the simplest musically in the whole film,
I threw out quite a lot of material in my search for the right sound. John suggested
we try to recreate the music of the era in which this ancient temple was built
(3000 BC). Of course, one can only speculate about such matters, but it would
be fair to assume that a simple flute made of bone may have been played by the
people of this time. I adapted an ancient Irish lament and then recorded it on
a modern recreation of a bone flute, getting the player to improvise freely with
the phrases. I chose my favourite takes for each phrase out of the numerous improvisations.
Buchsbaum: "Inti Huatana" starts with Andean panpipes, then builds on
that with strings, percussion, brass, and choir, then segues into a gentle, thematic
section that sounds like narrative film music. The overall effect is that you're
not scoring a documentary, but truly a narrative film, with a definite story and
characters.
Westlake: That's an interesting observation because in much the same way as a
narrative film, the SOLARMAX score actually employs the use of leitmotif fairly
extensively. Each element of the film has its own voice, musically speaking. The
sun's theme is the recurring vocal piece "O Sol." Primitive religious
concepts are underscored with a massive percussion ensemble. The images of contemporary
astronomy and space research are supported by a kind of recurring “hymn
to science," and the story of Galileo is dealt with in a classical style,
perhaps somewhat reminiscent of music of that era.
Buchsbaum: "Aurora" is the centerpiece of the score. It's playful and
grand and shot through with a dance-like motif, like fabric moving in a great
wind. This evokes the aurora borealis, and near the end of the cue, with Middle
Eastern colors, it's almost as if you're likening the borealis to the movements
of a dress worn by a woman dancing.
Westlake: Due to the intense nature of the subject matter, we always ran the risk
of ending up with an overly serious film, so we were always seeking opportunities
to lighten things up a bit. Scoring the aurora as a whimsical ballet (a kind of
waltz in 6/4) created a welcome contrast to some of the more somber material in
the score. The music is very mercurial and busy, lots of sweeping scales and ethereal
textures. I proposed the middle eastern "feel" (with darabuka and finger
cymbals) as a joke - a sort of "dance of the seven veils" - but John
loved the idea, so it stuck.
Buchsbaum: The last cue on the CD, "Missa Solis," seems to be a review
of what's come before: the Andean panpipes and tribal percussion from "Inti
Huatana," then the choir in a grand crescendo, then a dramatic section that’s
filled with powerful cinematic moments. It moves from the big sounds immediately
to smaller ones, with a real sense of wonder and appreciation that everything
is in its proper place. And you end with a single string against deep horns, a
decidedly classical feeling.
Westlake: The film ends with a sequence of shots more or less recapping all the
elements dealt with in the film, and finally one of the prize moments - spectacular
footage of the sun’s surface taken from the S.O.H.O. telescope - a million
and a half miles away from earth. "We are tracking the face of God"
was John's response to my question, "What sort of music would you like here?"
It’s a very typical answer and gives you some idea of the way he works.
“Missa Solis” is a major musical moment in the film, and all the
musical elements are drawn together in a massive explosion of sound which peaks
as the audience travels through the heart of the Sun - to emerge into the starfield
on the other side of the solar system. It’s a brave piece of
filmmaking, and it took quite a while for the sequence to gel.
Buchsbaum: John, in the way that Steven Spielberg and John Williams have forged
a rare Hollywood partnership, do you see Nigel as your own personal composer?
Can you see yourself working with another composer at this point?
Weiley: I greatly enjoy the work of other composers, but I could not do a movie
with them. It's a kind of delightful frustration, like watching pretty girls when
you are happily married - and, as with a happy marriage, the collaboration just
gets deeper and richer and more rewarding.
Buchsbaum: Nigel, John wrote me that working with you is for me the most exciting
part of the whole process." What's the most exciting part of the process
for you?
Westlake: Apart from seeing the film for the first time in a proper Imax theatre,
the orchestral sessions were the highlight for me. I like to conduct my film recording
sessions whenever possible. It can be a fairly terrifying experience initially,
and although I'm no great conductor, I know what I want. For me, the conductor/performer
relationship works best when there is a mutual respect between the two. As a conductor,
I believe I am creating the music in partnership with the performers, and their
interpretation is a crucial part of the final work.
Buchsbaum: And John, can you elaborate for me what you meant when you wrote that?
Weiley: One of the most personally satisfying aspects of working with Nigel has
been the opportunity to be around while he matures musically. He has always had
enormous talent - his ability to invent one beautiful and original theme after
another has always been awesome - but with each work it is obvious that he gets
stronger, more sure-footed, more mature as a composer.
No one has ever accused me of being a very modest person, and I think I have made
some good films. But if anyone is looking for my name three hundred years from
now, my best chance is that they will find it in a footnote as someone who commissioned
several of the early works of Nigel Westlake. That'll do me fine.