Danny Elfman Quotations

I think that's one of the things that has always put me in kind of an odd niche. It's that all of my understanding of orchestral music is via film, not via classical music like it's supposed to be. To me it's the same, it doesn't make any difference.

It sounds really stupid, I hate making cosmic comments like this but, I just let it do what it wants to do.

I don't see myself necessarily having a burning desire to write a symphony.

I'll just start laying out the melody exactly where I want it to fall. And then I'll go back and fill it out. Whereas, in other pieces I'm really just going a couple bars at a time.

In some types of music I'm working out all the chords one bar at a time - the whole structure, because it's about that. And there are other pieces which are really about - okay, the melody is going to start here and play through to here.

So, it becomes an exercise in futility if you write something that does not express the film as the director wishes. It's still their ball game. It's their show. I think any successful composer learns how to dance around the director's impulses.

I like creating these rhythmic patterns. These interlocking rhythmic things are really fun.

You're allowed to rip-off another score so close that it's ridiculous. In my opinion it's ridiculous, how closely one can just rip-off a score that happened a year or two earlier.

Oh see, first off you gotta realize - everything for me is a reconstruction or deconstruction. I would actually say deconstruction. Mission: Impossible would be the exception. That would be a reconstruction- deconstruction.

I'm trying to interpret the film through the director's head, but it all comes out through me. So, a composer is kind of like a psychic medium.

It's hard to get a film, you know, you need a very special film to be able to get that experimental. But, I would love to see that happen. I would love the opportunity to be more experimental than I am.

Sometimes I like them artificial and sometimes I like them real. And the reason is because sometimes I like a real close sound. And I like a very specific snare sound and I can't get that in the big room.

In Tim's films, more than most, if you miss the tone, you don't get the film.

I'll look back and I'd be better to answer that in about three months from now. Or when the movie comes out and I see it. I don't even know what it is yet. I've still been in the middle of it.

Most often the music does end up in the movie, and sometimes there's a point where I wish that it wasn't, just because I think the score would be more effective if there was less of it. But, again, that's not my call.

I can't get that live and I don't have the time to take the tape, after I've finished recording it, into a little studio somewhere else where I can get a different kind of percussion sound.

I really liked doing a number of the projects and directors, and etc., etc., I knew about half-way through that I would never be doing that again. It's just not me. I really am happy as a part-time film composer, not a full-time film composer.

The first thing I do is lay out that melody and figure out how it has to hold here and then finish to land here, because you know in advance you're going to want the melody to catch four things in the action.

You have to write a good score that you feel good about. At least, you're supposed to. But, if the director hates it, it ain't going to be in the movie!

I'm looking for a feel and I have to find what that feel is before I can move on from there. I'm not necessarily catching stuff in such a simple way - I don't need to. So, I'm going for something else.

Or certainly I would need time - which I would love to have but there almost never is on a film - to just spend a week with a roomful of guys laying down these patterns.

So I've learned in the past, if a company approaches me and they want something like this, or something like that that I've done and I turn them down, they're going to do it anyhow.

There's kind of a cool feel that happens every now and then. I guess that feel is the thing that makes the score its own score. But, I don't know exactly what that is. So, it's hard for me to answer that question.

Doing Tim's film is always going to be the most pleasure. Let me just put it that way. So, without drawing favorites one way or the other, getting back with him and doing Mars Attacks! was certainly a special treat.

I had to do this very aggressive, big score in a very short time, and knowing that in the beginning, middle, and end would be this very, very famous theme, but I still had to weave a score around it and make it work as a score was really challenging.

I think that there's a lot more freedom in the low budget, the independent films where, unfortunately, you don't have the money, necessarily, to get the orchestras in there to play a lot of stuff. But, you have a lot more freedom, very often.

My education in film music came from watching tons of films,

I coached her through her singing debut, and she did great, ... And, she sings with a spider and worm.

But, when it comes to all the other little instruments, of which there's a lot in the stuff I've done the last couple of years, I do it all myself.

He looks like Sammy Davis Jr. -- but he's a skeleton,

Having ten melodies was also a huge challenge, because I usually have three - sometimes just one or two, but often three that I'm using.

Like 'The Nightmare Before Christmas,' writing songs for 'Corpse Bride' was a real treat. Tim's visuals make the perfect complement for the kind of stuff I love doing most. These wonderfully fun, dark, offbeat tales are the perfect platform for me to write odd, slightly twisted, obscure styles such as my favorite musical era... 1930s jazz. I only hope we get to do more in the future

That still has to be there. And so, it's kind of an interesting question you brought up. Because, on the one hand, yeah, it'd be lovely. I certainly don't see that happening. In fact, I see the opposite happening.

This is Halloween, everybody make a scene Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright It's our town, everybody scream In this town of Halloween.

I took part of Alan Silvestri's theme on the original [movie], which I really liked, and I pulled it into it new theme, which became kind of a hybrid. I really enjoyed that.

I really look forward to revisiting this body of work which has been such a huge part of my life and bringing it to the concert stage. And the idea of performing some of Jack Skellington's songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas live for the very first time is immensely exciting.

You'll never get me into a tux. Not until I'm dead and I have no choice because that's what the undertaker put me in.

Nothing bad ever happens, why should I care?

It often feels like a tremendous amount of work is required to get an idea moving forward, like pushing a train uphill. But at a certain point, the thing takes on its own momentum, and takes unexpected turns. So it's that feeling of holding on, rather than pushing it, that is the most exciting thing. It's that need to occasionally bounce off the walls, letting anything happen for any reason, and having nothing to guide you that is the joy.

You hear the beginning of a melody, you should kind of know it's going to lead down this path. It should start feeling like a friend, like familiar.

I would have to say I might do some stuff, but it's the film that's appealing. I was raised on film. My musical experience is all via film, it's not from classical music.

Sometimes on a film you just become taken with the fact that, all right this is as rough as it gets, but I'm going to support my general and I'm going to do the very best I can for him because he's a good general and I like him.

It all depends on the directors. Working closely with a director is the main job of a film composer. Interpreting what he perceives as a color, an emotion or mood is very abstract. A director tells you something he wants and then you have to run back.

If there's one thing I really love... it's sad music.

I'm so happy dancing while the grim reaper cuts, cuts, cuts, but he can't get me. I'm as clever as can be, and I'm very quick but don't forget; we've only got so many tricks. no one lives forever.

The idea of performing some of Jack Skellington's songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas live for the very first time is immensely exciting.

For me, writing something in the spirit of Halloween is like Mother Teresa writing on charity and sacrifice. It's just second nature to me.

Without the music it was kind of hard to tell. People were very confused whether you're allowed to laugh at the stuff that was happening.

But, really it was finding a kind of a vibe and letting that vibe carry the movie. And did I bring anything new to the mix? I don't know.

You have to nail the right tone because sometimes when you just see his films cold, you're not quite sure. It's the same in - I'm trying to think of other directors with a similar sense - David Lynch's films, Tim's films, some of Cronenberg's stuff.

What Brian laid out was something that felt really uneasy and bordering on feeling like I was on a boat or something. So I went with that feeling.

At the end of the day, Tim said, 'Look, can you just do this vocal?' I did not write it for myself, but did in the end, do it because Tim wanted me to, ... It was a fun part.

The whole process we're talking about is quite easy, ... I just hope people realize this was done using real sets and real lights.

Sometimes you get real close, sometimes you don't. Sometimes they drive you crazy. I think every composer does that. That's a big part of the job.

It's just hard. I wish the studios felt there was more value in these themes and these pieces of material - that they're worth protecting more. Because then it just wouldn't happen. If the studios cared, the stuff would be stopped in a second.

It was a ragtag street ensemble, ... Literally, we'd pass the hat. I learned how to breathe fire. I learned to play the trombone. I was a street musician for years.

It was a very sweet deal, ... But not for us. For them.

Then on the other hand I don't make it easy for those types to meet me, I'm sure. I live pretty privately, let's say. So I've not yet met a film score groupie. If they're out there, then we're keeping ourselves all well hidden from each other.

That little demo I wrote became the main title of the motion picture, and that started everything.

The beauty of a main title is that you establish your main theme and maybe a bit of your secondary theme. You plant the seed that you're going to go water later in the score. And so, having that removed just made it so much more difficult.

It's convenient in a way, because you don't have to answer many questions: People say, 'Man, how are you feeling?' And I say, 'How do I look?' And they go, 'Oh, okay.' I've got the coffin maker calling every now and then about measurements, wanting to give me a proper fit.

I try to keep myself as blank and as unprepared as possible until that moment, ... I have to get my head into his head because it's not strictly about my own tastes and instincts. It's a collaboration.

I'll do it very quickly and spontaneously. I expect that it will be slightly strange and bizarre, but catchy at the same time.

In Tim's films the tone is the most important thing that the score can do. In any unusual film, finding the tone makes such a big difference.

I really didn't intend to sing it, ... It happened like it did with the songs from 'Charlie' and 'Nightmare.' I always cut the songs myself doing all the voices. In 'Charlie,' I didn't count on doing all of them but it just worked out that way.