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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.

Danny Elfman

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Danny Elfman
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: May 29
Actor
Composer
Film Score Composer
Musician
Record Producer
Recording Artist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
LA
California
Daniel Robert Elfman
Going
Figures
Things
Hold
Land
Advance
Four
Melody
Action
Finish
Firsts
Catch
First
Lays
Thing
Figure

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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I don't see myself necessarily having a burning desire to write a symphony.
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Nothing bad ever happens, why should I care?
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It sounds really stupid, I hate making cosmic comments like this but, I just let it do what it wants to do.
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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.
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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.
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The idea of performing some of Jack Skellington's songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas live for the very first time is immensely exciting.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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.
Danny Elfman