Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541592
116 M PS E . O R G nominated picture editor. He helped me understand pacing and musical timing to cuts, phrasing around dialogue, all these things. The learning of an aesthetic is there for us if we choose to take it in. And there's a "if we think we know, we know we don't know." We have to approach every project with an openness and let the picture tell us what's happening, even if the picture editor is telling me something different—or the other way around. I try to have a dialogue about that in order to help me understand. When I see this cut and I see the actor do this move, it makes me feel one thing emotionally, but you're telling me I should be feeling something different. So, it's really an unraveling of all that. All that to say that understanding the story is the biggest step for me in temping. Then the next step is, do we have a composer in mind? Do they have a style in mind? You know, are we talking orchestral? Are we talking Nine Inch Nails and Trent (Reznor) and Atticus (Ross)? So that must be funneled down. And a lot of times I would have to do, say, four or five versions… Here's this style, here's that style, and see what resonates for them. PL: And is this also done to help them find a composer? JD: Sometimes it does. When I did this movie called Dream House, I temp'd it all with John Debney's work. Everything was working as though it was composed for this project. And he ended up scoring it. So, I guess, yes, it does happen. PL: Is there a part of temping you find to be particularly challenging? JD: I think the most challenging part for me is ear fatigue. You listen through so many pieces of music just to determine if something is in the right ballpark. After an hour or so of solid listening, you have to stop. Everything is sounding the same. You lose the uniqueness of a particular cue because its power has to be in the subtext conveyed. PL: You're always looking for something that's not stated on the screen… JD: Right? And so, it's really easy to say, "Well, that's a nice melody, but what is it saying here?" As another example, I remember working on a Wayne Wang film while my brother was in town. I brought him in and showed him a scene where I placed 10 different pieces of music against it. And I said, "So here's the scene. Here's with this music." He's like, "Oh, wow." Here's with this music. He's like, "Wow, that's different." "Here's with this music." "Oh my gosh, that's really different." They all worked. They Scoring mixer Michael Greene and composer Joseph listen to playback on Alpha. Joseph conducting his score for Alpha.