Interview - Heitor Pereira : Our exclusive interview

By Mulder, Los Angeles, 20 may 2016

Q: Good morning, Heitor Pereira You have started to work as a musician (guitarist and percussionist) on the Simply Red band. What was for you the best remembrance of this period ?

Heitor Pereira : Definitely the audiences. For the first time I played in front of 20,000 or 50,000 people to a full Wembley Stadium twice in a row. To me, that was the biggest memory. The band and music was great but Simply
Red’s audience is something that you never forget.

Q: Can you talk a little about your decision to work into the film scoring and about your collaboration with Hans Zimmer on Gladiator (2000), Black Hawk down (2001) ?

Heitor Pereira : Quite frankly, I didn’t decide that. It feels like when I realized I was completely immersed in the film music world and I just wanted more of that. Hans definitely was the initiator of this side of my career, and I’ve learned a lot with him and all the filmmakers that we worked with during all this time I collaborated with him. He gave me the opportunity to write original music to his own movies that is very unique, but that opened the doors for me to write my own scores to my own movies. So, Hans – thank you very much! Black Hawk Down and Gladiator were both Ridley Scott movies – there’s nothing like being in the same room and talking music with Such a great figure in the film world. Ridley is very observant, loves music, and was always a pleasure to work with. What an honor to work with someone so respected in the film industry.

Q: Concerning your collaboration with Harry Gregson Williams on some Tony Scott movies how did you Share the musical scoring process ?

Heitor Pereira : Basically, Harry would play me a cue and my job was either to play the melodies or come up with crazy electric guitar sounds and parts that sometimes resembled more like electric synthesizers than guitars because of the amount of pedals that I ran the guitar signal through. I also had the tremendous pleasure on The Rundown, a Peter Berg movie, to go to Brazil and record more than 100 percussion players in Rio and around 50 players in Bahia and bring that back to incorporate all those performances into the action music. Like Hans Harry always gave me a lot of space to be creative. I even co-wrote a couple of songs with him for example, “Alma Muda” for one of Tony Scott’s movies called “Domino”.

Q: You are one of the most interesting American musical composers. You have worked on some popular movies such as Despicable me 1&2 (2010-2013), The Smurfs 1&2 (2011 - 2013), Minions (2015) and recently for the Angry Birds movie (2016). What do you like in the process to record compositions for animated movies ?

Heitor Pereira : The fact that you can write real melodies with beginning, middle and end, that you can orchestrate these melodies and get played by amazing orchestras, that you can invite unique musicians to enhance the musical palette and, ultimately, the fact that all this work eventually arrives at the theatre for families to watch together and complete the circle.

Q: Can you talk a little about your long collaboration with Chris Renaud ? How did you work with him on these such amazing movies ?

Heitor Pereira : I’ve worked with Chris Renaud as a director for the Despicable Me movie and as a producer for Despicable Me 2, and most likely many other projects that are still to come from Illumination, but Pierre Coffin has been the director at Illumination that I communicate the most with, and lately Kyle Balda as well on Minions. It’s a great group of filmmakers that I’m honored to be working with. The system that we have been applying lately is to have a meeting every other week. Since they are in France and I am in Los Angeles, we connect through the phone or Skype and simultaneously use a program called Source Connect Pro to exchange ideas about the music I write for cues of the film and them showing me where they are at with the animation and story. This may go on from 6 months to a year.

Q: Did you know the game The Angry Bird before composing the 14th track The Angry Birds Movie Score Medley ? What was for you the main attractive aspect to work on this movie ?

Heitor Pereira : Yes, I was aware of the game – my kids played it, my mother played it and the medley is a 5 Minute collection of themes of the whole score that is in total approximately 70 minutes long that I wrote for the movie. The main aspect that immediately pulled me into the project was the subject matter of birds! I am a dedicated bird watcher since a very young age. I’ve travelled many places in the world to see and watch birds (Costa Rica, Hawaii, Brazil, Mexico, Bali…). Also, regarding the characters from the movie – I knew that it would be a lot of fun and a lot of music could come out of it so when I was invited by John Cohen (the producer of the first Despicable Me) to be part of this project, I was very happy.

Q: What can you say about with collaboration with Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly ?

Heitor Pereira : They were simply perfect. They love music, they understand the importance of music in animation and at the same time they gave me 100% freedom. They had a point of view about the characters that I believe that in the end contributed to the music in the movie. Their insight is intelligent and very informative and on top of it all, they are two great guys to have around.

Q: How did you choose and work with the avian sounds to create this score? How did you create the Red’s Theme ? Which Instruments did you use on this movie to create its score ?

Heitor Pereira : I’ve been collecting bird sounds all my life. I have a beautiful collection of bird call whistles (I’m talking about almost 100). So the sound of a woodpecker pounding its beak against a tree trunk can become a cowbell, the ruffle of their feathers can become a shaker, the sound of their songs, when sampled, can become little flutes and so on… Red’s Theme came from the need of writing a melody that could cover anger, friendship and heroism. So, the anger I built from a repetitive orchestral riff with a long crescendo, also pitched up distorted guitars that sound almost like mosquitos inside your head and stealth timpanis that explode into a Vicious Red eyebrow hit. Red also has a big heart that was broken at first but later mended withfriendship. That same heart drove him to become a hero, so the theme had to be full of emotion and have enough undercurrent material to become action music as well. I used ukuleles, bass kalimbas, the traditional Finnish instrument the Kantele which is at the beginning of the movie, a Guitarviol that you can play with a bow, I sung a lot of the high Percussion parts myself and then ran them through computer effects so they sounded like shakers and Hi hats of sorts and finally I had the honor to have the most amazing orchestra to play all the material with such heart and perfection that I know for sure elevated the movie. This is one of the scores that I’m the most proud of.

Q: What can you say about the music which have been your inspiration ?

Heitor Pereira : What inspired me the most to write the music for The Angry Birds Movie was the fact that It could be anything, so I bet there is a bit of every genre of music that I love somewhere in there…classical music, world music, rock and roll, which I really love, and I grew up in Brazil so all that music is in my veins as well. So I guess it’s a mix of all of this. Plus, what’s important on top of all these genres is that in film music you can use the world of sound as part of your palette too. So, for example, the sound of the wind can being corporated underneath a string section, as I said before all the birds can become musical instruments and the fact that a simple idea that you may have as you are singing in the shower can later, like in The Angry Birds movie, be sung by a 60 piece choir. It’s all something to look forward to every new day that I wake up and have this whole world of sound at my disposal.

Q: What do you like about the process of film scoring?

Heitor Pereira : Everything about it. I have a great team in my studio that helps me bring my crazy ideas into reality, I love meeting new filmmakers that bring new ideas that, through our collaboration, generates music that I’ve never written before, I also love working with filmmakers that I’ve been collaborating with for a long time, Like I said earlier – Pierre Coffin, Raja Gosnell from the Smurfs franchise, and producers like Chris Meledandri, Jordan Kerner and John Cohen.

Q: Which directors would you like to work with and why?

Heitor Pereira : I would like to work with anybody that has as much passion as I have for every project that they are involved in, that understands the huge amount of work and hours that myself and my team put into these projects, also somebody that loves melody as much as I do, that is open to crazy rhythms (because I am a crazy Brazilian after all) and somebody that celebrates every second the opportunity to be part of yet again one more story to tell.

Q: What can you say about your work on two documentaries: Discovery Channel’s Sonic Sea and The Last Animals releasing ?

Heitor Pereira : I can say this is the beginning of my future as a musician. I want to be part of as many projects that involve peoples’ awareness towards a better life between us and the beautiful natural world that’s around us – or what’s left of it. There is so much that can be done to protect it, and it’s our duty as citizens of earth. I’mthankful for the opportunity and also looking forward to the new music thatthese projects will bring out of me.

Q: What can you say about your work on the Sean McNamara’s movie The Moon and the Sun ?

Heitor Pereira : It was a great project to be part of, to work with the producers Bill Mechanic and Robert Kraft very closely and towards the end to also work with Sean McNamara. He came to my studio and saw the orchestra recordings taking place in Australia as we were here in Santa Monica connected remotely. I know that he was a big supporter of the music and I hope to work on more projects with him.

Q: What are your current project (s) ?

Heitor Pereira : My current projects are The Nut Job 2, a beautiful animated movie by Toonbox Entertainment, The Last Animals by Participant Media and Despicable Me 3.

Q: What is your most important accomplishment to this date?

Heitor Pereira : My most important accomplishment to this date is that I have two amazing kids that have become great young adults and contributors to society, a wife that has been with me for 30-­? something years as a good partner on everything life has brought me and that through these years of working with music I’ve made great friendships that I know will last forever. They have always been supporters of my artistry and a source of inspiration too. That’s On the personal level. For music itself, it’s hopefully that I still have many years ahead of my where I can write a lot of music that I haven’t heard yet and I’m looking forward to serve as a vehicle so it can become everybody’s music not just mine. Thanks for asking!

Q: What kind of advice could you give to someone who would like to work as a musical composer?

Heitor Pereira : Have your ears open to everything – to your environment and the whole worldof music. Search for the original inner voice that we all have in ourselves– listen to that and let that become your main instrument to make music. Nowadays Is the best time to be a musician: technology is cheap and abundant,opportunities are appearing in front of us like never before (video games, libraries, streaming services, the world of the internet asa platform, etc…) and live music is as strong as ever. Basically, you can write your music and perform it with an audience. Be thankful for every little thing that comes your way because it will lead to the next, and when the time comes, give opportunities to others like you were given at some point in your career as well.

We sincerely thank Heitor Pereira for answering all our questions
A special thanks to Andrew P. Alderete