Thomas Newman

There's nothing like desperation to sharpen your sense of focus.

your nothing like focus

With film music, endings are often more difficult than beginnings, because a beginning is an underline, a way of exciting a moment, and then you have to find a way to dissipate that.

beginning moment you music

The experience of a film is immersive, and music is supposed to underline and help that experience.

help experience film music

If you fail, fail fast enough so you can regroup and do it better.

fast better you enough

When you see an early edited version, you're not sure what it is. The movie is getting on its wobbly legs.

early see you legs

Music is such an odd thing when you think about it - behind an image until you take it away, and then you realize a movie sounds blank without it.

realize think you music

There are moments when I invoke my dad and think about him on the podium, but in a very positive way. I don't feel at all intimidated by him. I feel like I've found my own voice.

feel dad voice positive

'Sugarcoat the Galaxy' is inspired by color-inflected photographs of galaxies. It likens sounds to spun sugar and confection, wrapping static harmonies inside energy and pace.

inside galaxy sugar energy

'The Starship Avalon' is perpetually mobile. The music is designed to give the impression of endless sleep and endless journey with a significant interruption that guides the story that follows. It's color and pulse followed by great size.

great music journey sleep

The rare opportunity of writing music for a movie about the making of 'Mary Poppins' was impossible to ignore. The fact that it could provide emotional content in relief of the struggles that the Sherman brothers and Walt Disney endured was reason enough to take on the challenge.

challenge ignore music opportunity

I had ideas. A lot were good, but in many ways, I had no idea or experience about how to carry them out.

how good experience ideas

I realized so much of my life hasn't been in a well-lit room, and I realized the importance of documenting my experiences as a way to memorialize them.

room my-life life way

It's a practical matter. If you're useful to others, you'll be hired.

others useful you matter

There were certain things in 'Nemo' - just this low hum of ocean and watery sound - that was enough to imply water, as opposed to restating it over and over again.

ocean enough sound water

In animation, action is changing so quickly that there's really not a lot of suspended moments.

changing animation moments action

In live action, sometimes a mood or a feeling can go on for quite a while. Animation is a lot more effort. There are a lot more notes.

feeling effort mood sometimes

After the music that had been created by my family, I thought there was no way I could stack up.

thought family music way

You want to say as little as you can and get the most punch out of it, always with the knowledge that people are not in the theater to listen to your music so much as to respond to the movie. You're a part of that experience.

you music people knowledge

I didn't listen to any of my dad's scores.

scores listen any dad

I just want my music to involve an audience in what's taking place onscreen.

place just music want