CHAPTER 9
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CHAPTER 9 - EXCERPT
Time flew by, and Horner was about to play the last piece for us. This was a new cue he would premier for James Cameron later that afternoon. As he prepared to play the tune, he paused and began offering a series of disclaimers, “Now we haven’t mixed it yet, and the percussion samples are only temporary, and I’m not sure about the vocal harmony we tried on measure 14, and, and, and…”
As he trailed off, I thought to myself, “Dude, don’t you know who you are? You’re JAMES HORNER! You’re the musical voice of The Rocketeer, The Wrath of Khan, Braveheart, Titanic!” And yet, here he was, frantically trying to lower our expectations before playing a brand new cue.
In that very moment I realized that, in some ways, he is just like the rest of us. Making disclaimers before we play new music for someone. Always nervous about how a freshly composed track will be received. I have done that a hundred times myself. For just one moment, in that moment, I felt that James Horner and I were truly peers.
And then he pushed play...
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CHAPTER 9 - EXCERPT
Then came an unexpected caveat. The team only wanted me for half of the score. They asked me to compose music for the indigenous species (Na’vi) part of the game. A second composer’s demo had more fully captured the essence of the military industrial complex (RDA) in his music. They wanted the other composer to create the RDA half of the score.
I decided to try a very bold move. I decided to make a play for the whole project...
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