Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/790371
43 Q1 2017 / CINEMONTAGE 43 Q1 2017 / CINEMONTAGE the editors say, including 28 original or found songs, featured or played as source music, and 35 pieces of original music written by Elfman as underscore. Thus, although these movies obviously are geared to an adult audience, Rubin says she and Abbott felt the combined project represented "a higher calling" for them, and Abbott emphasizes that the project differed from their typical work because of the "sheer quantity of music required and the nature of the film." Having plenty of material to work with and lots of studio hands weighing in on possible choices, Rubin and Abbott sometimes found themselves experimenting to figure out particular sequences. This could occasionally get laborious, but it was also educational, they say, because the myriad of elements available to them — coupled with their skill, the talent of Elfman and their other colleagues, and the magic of their Pro Tools systems — allowed them to definitively prove or disprove a wide range of theories and possibilities, leaving everyone involved comfortable with their eventual final selections. "We would get studio notes saying we should add a score cue here or there," Abbott explains. "So Angie or I would temp something in, and if the powers that be liked it, it went on Danny's to-do list. Quite a few score cues were added late in the process, but several ideas were broomed once everyone saw how the scenes played with music, including a nine-minute cue that played over a series of dialogue scenes. Danny was relieved to see that our valiant effort to temp that scene failed in the end. Instead, source music was used to help propel the scene, and when score did come in, it was much more emotionally effective." Rubin adds that among her many challenges was matching up songs with sexually charged moments without taking the easy or obvious way out — preferring, instead, for a subtler approach to making a proper match. "A highly romantic or sexy song didn't always work for those scenes," she reveals. "We wanted to be captivating, but not always too on the nose. We didn't want to add too much to what was already going on on the screen. We were already getting sexual intensity from the imagery, so we wanted to get something else from the song." Rubin remembers looking for a song for a scene in which Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) introduces Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) to a new sexual experience. "The temp was a Weeknd song at the time, but we knew we had to replace it," she continues. "For these big-screen moments, we wanted original tracks written especially for the film. And then, the song 'Pray' [by the band JRY] arrived. I knew it was the one and ran with it. That song set the mood but wasn't over the top or hitting you over the head with narrative lyrics. It had an interesting groove and a male vocal, since a male is, well, dominating in the scene. It wasn't something I could explain, but it is the kind of thing a music editor thinks about — the kind of thing that people don't realize we do in our work." Fifty Shades Darker. Universal Pictures