A Quote by Johann Johannsson

I always do very detailed demos. I feel that it's better to show the director a demo that sounds as close to the final thing as possible with samples. It takes time to create, but I feel that it's better to get the director on board very early on in terms of the sounds that I have in my head.
I feel like when I get the demos - I get a lot of demos - but when I get the right demo, I get very inspired. I produce around it, and it often goes very fast.
I've had friends who have come away who've said, "I shouldn't have become such close friends with the director." You always want to get on with the director, but I personally prefer a relationship where you respect them - you get on really well with them, but they're boss, as it were. It's about trusting your director, for better or for worse. They're the one's seeing what's coming out on the monitors, so you have to try and trust what they say.
The idea, as a director, is to be able to bring everybody on board and to inspire and give energy to everybody and to explain specific color, specific ambience. I need to be very precise, but I think I'm a better director when I'm more a channeler than a dictator.
Some people remaster their records six, seven times, remix it three, four times, spend a million hours, then they always go back and hear a demo of it and they'll say, 'Aw that sounds so much better than the final mix.'
Independent film making is very collaborative. You feel like it's you, the director and other actors and you really feel like you have the final say. When you do the bigger films, the studio has to give the final thumbs up and they're usually not big on risk taking because they're trying to make money.
Every single year since they invented sound recording it gets better and better. We've always improved it. With MP3, which just sounds awful, it's the first time in the history of recorded music that it sounds worse. It's really - and it's everywhere, it's ubiquitous.
J.J. Abrams is a director with no ego. He is a director who has a very consistent attitude when he's at work. He's funny, he's brilliant, he's a combination of all these really great things. J.J. is the kind of person who sees the bigger picture before anybody else does. It sounds simple but not all directors do that.
'Cuban Fury' was a big production for a first time director to handle: I think it is very easy to become very stressful and for it to get the better of you.
The process always starts with detailed conversations with the director, followed by a spotting session (deciding where the music goes and doesn't go in the film, and what the music should be saying or not saying) in each scene. This is followed by sending the director demos of each cue for feedback.
I very, very, very rarely lose my temper. I do get cross sometimes when encountering something that I feel is improper, that I feel is lacking in justice and equity, and this all sounds very pompous and over the top - but these are the things that really upset me: intolerance, prejudice etc. I suppose in more mundane matters, I'm impatient.
As a director, I do very few takes, because I feel like you hire the right actor and they'll do the job right. And the directors that I've worked with and had the best luck with - Jason and [ Steven] Soderbergh and the Coen brothers - all have been that kind of director.
I think a lot of electronic musicians are drawn to starting with texture because the whole reason we're working with electronics is to try to create new sounds or sounds that cannot be created acoustically. When you're doing that, it's nice to be able to just create a different palette for every single song. I feel like a lot of electronic music sounds like...Each album sounds like a compilation more than it does a band.
The thing that amazes me about getting fired is that nobody ever has anything insightful to say about it. They always say the same thing. They always say, 'Everything happens for a reason.' As lame as that sounds, I guess it’s better to hear it out loud. Because when you hear it in your own head, it sounds like, 'Anything can happen with a razor.
I'm very pragmatic in that I know there are very few greats in anything. I got lucky just to have gotten two of the real great filmmakers very early on. Better to have had them than to not have had them. I've been really fortunate. That's the key relationship on a movie: the director and the actor. Of course, you can't compare the experiences. When you're in your early 20s, you're a very different person. It was a very exciting time, and my whole world was changing. Now I'm looking back, and hoping I can still offer something. Still do good work.
For me, the French new wave is Truffaut and Rohmer. Godard I sometimes have trouble with because he's very much of a director's director. I feel Truffaut is such a humanist, and I always go in that direction.
Listening to the birds tells you different things about a place. I heard bird sounds I'd never heard before. I heard street sounds and country sounds and city sounds that are very different from what it is I'm used to and I get very fascinated about how that marks a place.
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