A Quote by James Newton Howard

Any composer should be able to synthesize the primary feelings that the characters are going through in the movie. — © James Newton Howard
Any composer should be able to synthesize the primary feelings that the characters are going through in the movie.
I prefer playing characters that are going through turmoil. Most movie characters are just in service to the story.
Movie characters rarely get to think out loud or talk very much about their emotions. Instead they have to, very briefly, show their feelings through their action or through dialog.
So I’m thinking this is the part of my movie where things appear as if nothing is going to work out. I have to remind myself that all movie characters go through this sort of dark period before they find their happy ending.
When I go speak to these kids through my foundation and am able to sit down and tell them some of the things that I've been through, they can look up and relate to me, and they can understand the feelings I had that are similar to what they're going through and feeling.
I think, even a lot of people that make movies forget is that, in my mind, a movie should work with the sound off. You should be able to watch a movie without the sound and understand what's going on. That's your job, to build a series of chronological images that tell the story.
Of course, I want to look the best I can, but I am playing characters that should match my age, and the women and the material that I am interested in are usually going through something. I have to be able to live in my face and tell the story of the character I've taken on.
Sondheim informs us, more than any other composer, about the joys, passion and pain of being a woman living in various social conditions through the ages with frightening accuracy. Playing a variety of his characters has always made me feel like I'm having a free therapy session through his words and music!
Part of the allure of watching characters on-screen is to be able to put yourself in his or her shoes or to be able to relate to what he or she is going through or what he or she is thinking.
I tell everybody on the first day of making a movie that if anyone's here to further their career, they should leave. I'm gonna make the movie in such a way that we won't have a career when this movie comes out. Because the people who hold the moneybags are not going to want to share any of that money with us to make the next movie!
The psychological detective story in "Equus" made Peter Shaffer's name as a playwright. But it was his next play, "Amadeus," that cemented his reputation, largely because of the movie version. Another battle of wills, it was the story of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart seen through the eyes of lesser composer Antonio Salieri.
It's very difficult to have any kind of romantic feelings for a movie where you know exactly what's going to happen in the first five minutes.
I love characters that are going through turmoil. To be honest, I love characters with conflict. I love characters who are really going through an emotional journey; whether it's a super-dark-crazy journey or a really relatable guy.
You're able to do things in novels: introduce subplots, other characters, thematic layers and so on, in a way that you simply can't in a movie. A movie really has to choose its battles.
Be persistent. Establishing yourself in this field could easily take years. Rarely will any composer get that one "big break." More often, success is built on hundreds - or thousands - of very small breaks. When I decided that I was definitely going to pursue a career as a film composer, I decided I was going to beat my head against that particular wall until something broke.
I can't describe it in words, but I can see it in my head, its color, its light, its shapes, and I've managed to synthesize my love for myself by way of many different reasonings and processes, and I've been able to really synthesize my own satisfaction and things that do it for me. They've usually been self-taught, self-instructed, self-refined. So to be with anybody else has to somewhat lie in that comfort zone I've created with myself so well.
I am a passionate, committed composer, and the guy I used to write musicals with, once he was able to ditch me and get a better composer, actually won the Tony.
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