I grew up in a very musical environment...

actually, I was literally born in a musical environment as I've heard my father would play Pachelbel's Cannon in D to me while I was in the womb. I was raised in San Diego - my mother was (and is) a classical guitarist and studied with the spanish guitarist Pepe Romero. They're still friends and he's a tremendous musician, and so is she. Music was always present in the house and I used to spend hours with my ears plugged humming these little tunes to myself, I remember doing this as a child - I would do it all the time. I don't think I even realized what I was doing. I probably sounded a little kooky doing it too! Eventually my parents got me a little keyboard and that's when I started to really think about music and being musical. I first became aware of film music when I saw Batman in '89, which had this fantastic score by composer Danny Elfman. Even in my infantile state, I realized that there was something going on here that interested me - that there was a guy back there behind the scenes making that music! So, I was pretty much hooked from that point on. I think through most of my teenage years I spent pretty much every extra dollar on film music cds. I have quite the collection, but I'm not a collector, dammit - I listen to every one of those cds! They've gotten a work out, and I learned a lot from those. I would later study formal composition with Prix de Rome winning composer James Heinke. My lessons with Jim were great - we didn't have much time together, as he passed on rather unexpectedly shortly thereafter, but I must say they were some of the most productive experiences I've had creatively. He had his home and studio, along with his wife Sandra, an excellent pianist, and downstairs there was this little performance hall...and when I showed up he was very casual about things... We'd talk for awhile... Heard any good music lately? That sort of thing. Then eventually we'd proceed downstairs to the hall, and we'd sit at the grand piano down there and just start to improvise together. And he'd offer little suggestions here and there... he'd say "Don't forget you've got a whole keyboard here. All these octaves to explore. Don't get trapped in one little spot there." We didn't really speak much, but we were speaking, you know? And I remember thinking "Wow, this is a first. There is a musical understanding happening." Ideas that I couldn't really explain to anybody, these internal musical ideas that I could barely understand myself, he understood instantly. It's hard to explain that thing that happens with music, and that's the tricky thing. It's hard to teach composition, so much of it is tied into your very being, and your mental / emotional / spiritual state. You can learn music theory and form, but at the time that was very intimidating to me and it was getting in the way of my connection to the magic or the spirituality of the music. As a composer, I think you have to look at it a little bit like you're a scientist or an explorer. But you're exploring innerspace - your exploring the language of the soul. Jim knew this and so we didn't spend as much time dealing with theory - it was more about improvisation and exploring different sounds and creating. He was the best teacher I ever had.

I was very moved by the screenplay, and I'm intrigued to see what visual elements Bogdan intends to dish out (an exciting prospect if you've seen 'The Angel'). It's very evocative, daring stuff - AVA is daring. And daring is a rare quality in film these days - Bogdan has a vision with this script, of that I'm sure, and it's an original vision, an original take on the subject matter, and a very devastatingly emotional one. I was hearing music while reading the script (something that hasn't happened in a long time) and I'm excited about the chance to help AVA achieve it's full potential. I feel like it will be rife with musical opportunities - it is at times very dark and horrifying, but also contains a lot of romance and beauty. These are themes that I love delving into, from a musical standpoint - especially juxtaposed against each other as they are in AVA.

I don't have one particular favorite movie - but, I'll play the game and nominate Fellini's Otto e Mezzo. That's always been up there in close competition with Carol Reed's The Third Man and Hitchcock's Vertigo for me. I adore these pictures. Otto e Mezzo is nice because it is so specifically about the existential crisis of the "Artist", so it touches a personal nerve. Of course I would never compare myself to the genius of Fellini, but the ideas he's expressing, I think, are pretty universal to anyone who is passionate about art but finds themselves in a creative (and really spiritual) wasteland. And it's such a personal film for Fellini, he's really turning the microscope onto himself in that show. And then there's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, which is a film that starred Rex Harrison as a sailor ghost who falls in love with a woman who has moved into his house.. well, first he attempts to "haunt" her, but it doesn't really work out. She's a strong lady, and that ultimately appeals to the cantankerous old sea captain. It's all very romantic. That film has, in my opinion, perhaps one of the finest film scores ever married to a film, composed by the wonderful (and, like the sea captain, also both cantankerous and romantic) Bernard Herrmann. More recently, I've been watching a lot of Lynch films - Lost Highway is such a fantastic picture and so is Mulholland Drive. So, there you go. Ask for my favorite film and you get me rambling on and on.