On the back of a very busy 2014 which has seen him work on the acclaimed Irish film ‘Gold’ and the three part ITV series ‘Cilla’ – IFTN talks to the man behind the music of both projects – composer Niall Byrne.
Byrne is a 2013 IFTA winner for ‘Loving Miss Hatto’ – with the composer garnering five nominations before that – for ‘Parked’, ‘Small Engine Repair’, ‘Short Order’, ‘Trouble With Sex’ and ‘On Home Ground’.
Here, IFTN talks to Byrne about Mexican standoffs over music in ‘Gold’, the huge number of song arrangements in ‘Cilla’ and the importance of choosing what not to learn when training to be a composer.
IFTN: Tell us about your work on ‘Gold’.
Niall Byrne: ‘I got to work on ‘Gold’ because I’d worked with the director Niall Heery previously on his debut feature film ‘Small Engine Repair’. I’d also worked with the film’s producer, Tristan Orpen Lynch, before on a few projects. Both Niall and Tristan have been very supportive to me. ‘Gold’ is an indie-style comedy with great performances. I remember one music cue in particular that was tricky. It was the first cue in the film, which is an important one, as you’re setting out your stall in terms of the overall approach of the score. The music used as a guide track was a Neil Young track from a film called ‘Dead Man’. I really didn’t like it. Niall Heery wasn’t sure about it. Tristan loved it. So it evolved into a classic Mexican standoff, but with opinions rather than guns. Though it’s possible Tristan actually did have a gun. We got there in the end, and Tristan later told me he was happy with what I did, but it took a while for all of us to agree on the approach. Having worked on quite a few projects at this stage, I try to embrace these kinds of situations. They’re like little puzzles to be solved. In a way being a film composer is as much a job about getting inside other people’s musical heads.’
Tell us about your work on ‘Cilla’.
‘My work on ‘Cilla’ came about because I had worked with director Paul Whittington and producer Kwadjo Dajan on the ITV series ‘The Widower’. The executive producer and writer was Jeff Pope, who got an Oscar nomination with Steve Coogan for the screenplay to ‘Philomena’, which was one of my favourite films of 2013. ‘The Widower’ was a pretty dark story about the wife-murderer Malcolm Webster. For the score I used a lot of ambient, electronic sounds, the concept being to make the audience unsettled by not allowing them the familiarity of traditional instruments. Octagon Films had recommended me for the job, and I got on well with Paul and Kwadjo, so when they were preparing to work on ‘Cilla’, which was the story of the singing career of Cilla Black, written again by Jeff Pope, they asked me to come on board.’
‘Unlike ‘The Widower’, which was a co-production, ‘Cilla’ was an entirely UK based project. It was also tonally very different. ‘The Widower’ had a dark and disturbing central figure, whereas ‘Cilla’ was much more of a straightforward, cheerful character. Paul, the director, felt that the songs in the piece expressed all we needed to know about Cilla as a person, so for the score we decided to focus more on the troubled characters, like her manager Bobby and Brian Epstein, rather than Cilla herself. The biggest challenge was creating all the period songs. I think there were 24 songs as well as an original score. I’ve written and arranged songs on films before, but this was an overwhelming amount of song arrangements in a short period of time. Luckily, I’d been introduced to a composer/arranger at Abbey Road studios by the name of Chris Egan a few months prior to discussing this project. I put him forward to oversee the backing tracks for the songs and it worked out really well. Cilla Black had recorded at Abbey road with Burt Bacharach, and the team of arrangers there are so familiar with the sound of the 60’s, that Abbey Road was just a perfect fit for the project. Some of the equipment used by The Beatles is still there, such as the original mixing desk they used with George Martin. It’s amazing to see these things just lying around in corridors. We recorded the score here in Dublin at Cauldron Studios. It was mostly piano and strings, with some ambient electronic sounds.’
What training/education did you receive to become a composer?
‘I started piano lessons when I was five or six which I think had a big influence on me. When I was a teenager I messed around writing music on the piano, bass guitar and synthesisers. I wrote music for plays while studying English and Philosophy at college. At some point after college I felt I needed to have some theoretical awareness of what I was doing, so I studied privately with a professor in the Royal Irish Academy of Music for a couple of years when I was in my early 20’s. I was self-taught as a composer, and for a long time all she kept telling me was what I was doing ‘wrong’. Let’s just say we had very different ways of doing things. I do think that it’s a good idea to know some of the theories of harmony and counterpoint that have been passed down through the Western tradition, if only so you can break them, so I’m grateful to her for teaching me some of those things. Aside from that, I learned everything I know about writing music largely through listening to it, reading about it in books and just doing it. Of course you need craft, but you also need to find your own way of doing things. Too much theoretical knowledge can be paralysing, and sometimes not knowing the accepted way to do things can lead to more interesting results. The American composer Carter Burwell has spoken about the importance of choosing what not to learn. I agree with that idea.’
What was your first job in the industry?
‘My first proper scoring job was for a feature film called ‘Micha’, a Russian-Irish co-production. I stayed with the director Gerry McCarthy in St. Petersburg for a few months in the Summer of 1992. I got to hang out with some very memorable Russian characters, and I was writing the score back in our apartment. At the time St. Petersburg was just emerging from its’ former incarnation as Leningrad. One morning I woke up and the street names to the studio had been changed overnight.’
What do you enjoy most about being a composer? And what do you consider the greatest challenges?
‘What I enjoy most is when you find the right music for a film, something that elevates the material to a new emotional level, while also helping to tell the story. The biggest challenges as a film composer are often the non-musical ones, i.e. meeting deadlines on a tight schedule or dealing with conflicting opinions on the direction your work should take. The best filmmakers usually create a space for you to feel comfortable trying out your own ideas.’
Describe your typical working day and the equipment you use.
‘I usually write from early morning to around lunch time. That’s my most productive time. The afternoons are usually about rewriting or revising what I wrote that morning. Like most film composers these days I use a computer system for most of my work. I work directly in Pro Tools on a Mac Pro and use Sibelius software for preparing scores. Sometimes I might start by trying ideas out on just the piano. I also have a bunch of other instruments and one of these might suggest the direction for a score. If the schedule on a project is tight, I might also work in the evenings on e.g. revising orchestration or doing Pro Tools pre-mixes, but this usually happens towards the end of a project when the inevitable deadline is looming.’
What filmmaker/composer has influenced you?
‘Composers who work in film I admire would be ones like Ennio Morricone, Michael Nyman, Carter Burwell, Alexandre Desplat and Max Richter. I like composers who try less traditional approaches and who aren’t afraid of melody, simplicity or having an emotional impact.’
What Irish film or TV show would you have loved to have worked on?
‘I don’t really think like that. I can’t say I have any regrets there. I’m just happy to have worked on the Irish projects that have come my way.’
What films and TV shows did you enjoy growing up that may have encouraged you to work in the industry?
‘When I was a teenager and I saw films by filmmakers like Tarkovsky, Bergman, Wim Wenders, Peter Greenaway and French cinema like ‘Diva’, ‘Betty Blue’, ‘The Hairdresser’s Husband’ etc, I loved the way they used music. It was an intense, European cinema about relationships, with a more original approach to using music than I had seen before. The music added a new emotional dimension to the film and was not just used for traditional dramatic purposes. That blew my mind.’
What’s the difference between working on an Irish production and working on an international production for you?
‘A film is a film so there’s no difference in approach. The budget on an Irish production will be pretty small, but for the last few years I’ve only worked on Irish co-productions or UK projects, so that’s less of an issue.’
What advice would you give to anyone wishing to get into composing?
‘Write great music that can stand on its own terms. Get an agent who will protect you against the pitfalls of the business. Make friends with like-minded people who make the sorts of films that you like. Play to your strengths as a composer. Keep writing.’
‘Gold’, directed by Niall Heery and produced by Tristan Orpen Lynch and Aoife O’Sullivan for Subotica is available to view now on Netflix along with other recent Irish films.
