MPSE Wavelength

Winter 2023

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M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S I 25 I recently had the opportunity to chat with music editor Joe E Rand. It was a pleasure to reconnect after many years. We first met when we were both participating in the BMI: Earle Hagen Film Scoring Workshop way back in 1988. Since then, Joe E has gone on to an illustrious career as a music editor, working on such projects as Crazy Rich Asians (2018), Southpaw (2015), The Croods (2013), Rise of the Guardians (2012) and all the way back to films such as Courage Under Fire (1996) and Titanic (1997). He won a Golden Reel Award last year for his work on Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story (2021). While we had a great time reminiscing, I was particularly struck by Joe E's insight into the process, his workflows, and how he sees the business in its current state. I hope you will enjoy our chat as much as I did. Here then, are my six questions for Joe E Rand. PERRY LA MARCA MPSE: Tell us a little about yourself and your musical background. What was the event that led you to your first music editing job? JOE E RAND MPSE: I studied music composition at Yale, and I had a lot of experience improvising piano scores for screenings of old silent movies, but what seemed most magical to me was what happened in a studio, and the things you could do with tape manipulation. After graduation, I drove to Los Angeles and grabbed any opportunity to be around film music and recording studios. I orchestrated, conducted, wrote concert music, and got a few composing opportunities on indie films. I became friends with several music editors, but didn't really understand that domain, so when one of them said she was desperate for an assistant, and offered to hire me the next day ... I said yes. I thought I was just helping a friend, and much later realized it was a career move. I traded the creativity and sense of ownership you have as a composer, for a different, more limited creativity, but I was soon working with better directors and editors than I was ever likely to meet as a newbie film composer, and that was addictive. I could learn more about film itself, and storytelling, and I found I was pretty ON MUSIC EDITING Six Questions for Joe E Rand BY PERRY LA MARCA MPSE

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