Lucas Vidal is a 28 year old Spanish composer whose recent work includes Hollywood movies The Raven and The Cold Light of Day which stars the latest Superman, Henry Cavill and movie legend Bruce Willis (and is out tomorrow 6th April in the UK).
I got to sit down with Lucas yesterday to chat through how he got into making music for the movies, where his influences come from and what he wants to do next. It was an absolute pleasure chatting with him as we talked at length about the many of the challenges that he has faced with his music and with his health which he has overcome to become top of his game.
You can follow Lucas on Twitter @lucasvidalmusic and I’ve placed a video below which shows him at work. His website can also be found here.
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7vILGnJR4s’]
Read on for more!
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How did you get into composing for these huge feature films?
It’s been quite crazy to tell you the truth. It’s only because of my age, I just turned 28 and normally, in the film composing / scoring business, you normally do your first film when you’re 30 or 31 and I’m only 28 and I’ve done ten! It’s very cool because i can work with top, cool people but on the other hand people are watching you and you’re under the microscope. It’s fun and the most important thing is to do what you love and I LOVE to do this.
How did you go from something that you love into doing big feature films?
I met Steve Dzialowski (my business partner) at Berklee College of Music, I was studying film scoring and composition and he was studying music business and we started a company in Europe. We started doing a lot of projects and we’d have team of students helping us and working with us. I really wanted to be record and record orchestras as that is my strength. We wanted to do collaboration with other people so we moved to New York and I continued at Juilliard in New York and meanwhile we were doing smaller films and TV movies and then we started getting work in LA so two or three years ago we moved to LA. We then met a lot of people and apparently they liked what we did and that’s how we started.
Now we get to work with really good people, the best engineers in town, the orchestrators, it’s like wow because they believe in us. That’s what, to me has been the best part because I love to learn. When I have free time, I’ll take the a score of a film and then study the actual printed score while watching the film. I like to see the orchestration. That’s my thing, I like movies but more than that I like the music.
What’s your inspiration?
I was in a very classical background and my parents were pushing me into classical music and I have cousins that are dancers. In fact, I have one who’s a principle at the Royal Ballet here and one in Boston and my grandfather had a record label back in the day so music has always been at home. When I was younger I loved playing piano and flute so I think that was my film scoring approach to classical music. Then I became really passionate about making films with a small camera. I liked the cinematography, moving the camera and making short films with friends. I’d watch a show or a film and mute it and then start playing with the film. It all really changed when I was fifteen and I went to Berklee College of Music to do a five week programme; I went there and I fell in love and they gave me a scholarship and that was it!
Wow, that must have blown your mind to get that opportunity?!
Yeah, when I was younger, this is all I wanted. I actually got cancer when I was 20 and I think it was in a way very inspirational that through chemotherapy. I kept thinking “I really want to do what I love and that’s music for films. No matter what, I’m going to do an action film with a full orchestra at Abbey Road or in LA”. That was my goal. Then, we did a lot of recordings and the first orchestra recording at Berklee was historic, no one had ever done it like that before. After the recording, I spoke to Steve and said we decided we needed to do something bigger. So we found an animation short film studio and did a full orchestra with 120 people and then we wet to Boston Symphony Hall with 140 players and no one had ever done that at Berklee before.
We’ve been very lucky, been approached by very nice people and then with Intrepid Pictures, we did The Cold Light of Day. I went to the set and hung out with Henry Cavill, it was amazing!
The Raven and The Cold Light of Day are very different films, how do you begin writing for each?
To me the most important thing is to watch the film several times. I first watch it with temp music and then with no music so I get the idea and the concept but then I watch the reels and watch them a lot of times to get the film in my head. With The Raven, the movie is about Poe, Poe’s life, Poe’s music in that time and then I have a conversation with the filmmaker to tell me what he wants. In the case of The Raven, he wanted something distorted and a lot of electronics as he didn’t want to make a period film, he wanted a thriller. Once we do the spotting (the meeting with the filmmaker), we start putting the music together, working scene by scene and then boom, recording.
With Cold Lights, it’s more action so big orchestra, and we had a lot of fun at Abbey Road with the engineer that works with Alexandre Desplat… top guy, it was really weird.
Do you get intimated?
No, no. I used to, five or six years ago but now it’s a matter of being prepared and being ready for the session. Whenever I go and score the film, I go ready. I’ve been studying conducting, and conducting my own scores. I’m very precise with music and I really know what I want. I know when I start the players would look at me thinking “who is this kid” but I think I try and be very nice with them, nice and humble and just try to have fun with them and to make sure they have fun too. Some conductors are very serious and I respect that but in my case, what works is to be nice and friendly and open to their suggestions as it’s what they do every single day so they know more than me.
Who do you love to listen to?
I love to listen to Alexander Desplat (the man who did the last Harry Potters, Syriana, Benjamin Button) so he has a French taste, a European taste even though he does American films as well. I think he’s very musical, I love his melodies. I also listen to Ennio Morricone, Bernard Herman, John Williams and in Spain Alberto Iglesias is my favourite. He’s the nicest guy ever.
What have you got coming up next?
I’ve got two Spanish projects coming up. One is from the same Producers as Zell 211 and another one which is a horror film called Afterparty then an Italian movie and some other things which we’re talking about that I cannot discuss at the moment.
What’s the best thing for you being a composer in the film industry?
When I’m on my podium, conducting, that is for me the best part of the process. To be in front of the orchestra and to be making thew balance and making the music come alive. Doing it with human beings is amazing, from an idea or a theme to a full five minute queue is fun!
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Thanks so much to Lucas for your time. Top man!