Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541592
118 M PS E . O R G to take this out, take it out—it's going to stand on its own; or you can do this and add this in here." I wrote it that it could work in multiple ways, and that's what they did. I sent it to them, and they started cutting it into the movie. My biggest takeaway with Clint involved a scene where the name of the cue is called "Sniper Elbow," and it's where Bradley Cooper and his team were having dinner behind enemy lines with people they thought were friendly. While they're having dinner and everybody's chitchatting around the table, Bradley Cooper notices the host of the table's elbow because he's sitting down at the table, laughing with his daughter, and blah blah blah. But he notices the elbow is the same kind of elbow that he has as a sniper. It's the way they lean on their rifle—he recognizes this guy's a sniper. So, he excuses himself from the table feigning a need to use the bathroom. Along the way, he starts checking out the house and so we have a little tension in the score. He's doing one thing, everybody else is thinking another. What is he going to find? He goes into this room and he's checking here and there; he opens up an armoire, checking that, then eventually, he walks over this carpet and he feels the floor give. He pulls the carpet away, opens up the floor, and there's a host of ammunition. He finds all these weapons. So, I'm scoring that section and I know Clint does not want melodic themes; so I scored more in terms of just tone. Like Mustafa, the other sniper, you'll hear stuff where it all sounds like sound design, but it's not. Every time he's on screen, you hear his "sound" that I wrote. And so, for this scene, I needed to keep the emotional tension there, but I had to do it without it being melodic or too harmonic. So, I decided to use dynamic variation. So, I'm ebbing and flowing. I'm louder, softer. I'm holding, moving, pushing, and just kind of giving it breath, right? So, I'm ready to play it for Clint, and I've been schooled already to just give Clint a moment to respond because he's not quick to react. He takes his time and sometimes you could sit there for a minute. No joke. And wait... Finally, I asked: "What do you think, Clint?" So again, I waited. I waited… And he finally says, "He's just looking in the closet." And I'm like, "Got it." I smoothed out the dynamics. He was so right. And made it so that when we needed the tension, we could add tension. But he was just looking in the closet! And I missed, you know, the whole idea of scene reading. It's a tricky thing. I read it, but I imposed upon it. And Clint was sensitive enough to know that no, no, he's just looking in the closet. So, I carry that line with me everywhere. Now, whenever I'm temping, whenever I'm scoring, are they just looking in the closet? What does it mean, what are Sinfonia 2 Concert, conducting the Imperial Symphony Orchestra. Photography by Andy Glogower used by permission