Interview - Helene Muddiman : Our exclusive interview

By Mulder, Edimbourg, Ecosse, 17 june 2016

Q: Hello Helene, can you talk a little about your early career with EMI Records and Music Publishing and about your work with Hans Zimmer on some scores ?

Hélène Muddiman : I was signed to EMI at 18 in a band. Our music was very pop though we were described by the music press as being 'cutey punk' because I had a version of a Mohawk hair style! Which meant I spent my youth being asked by strangers 'is it windy outside?' To which I would reply 'no, I slipped and my fingers landed in the electric socket!' Hans Zimmer gave me a job in 1994 in London singing - he paid me extremely well for 30 minutes work to sample my voice, so I am the voice of the Helenya sample which, he tells me, appears on many of his films. I realise now I was a very naive back then and I did myself out of many jobs by allowing myself to be sampled, which is why I tell young composers and artists to learn as much as they can about the music 'BUSINESS'!

Q: You have worked with John Powell on Happy Feet 2 and Ice Age 4 and Danny Elfman on Frankenweenie, and you also had your own Cartoon Network series The Cramp Twins; What do you like about working on animations?

Hélène Muddiman : It's so varied! One minute you're writing a sea shanty and the next a full blown orchestral action scene and everything in between! Also it can be really subtle or really over the top depending on what gets the most laughs or emotion... Oh and there is sooooo much music!!!!

Q: What can you tell us about your work on the film Bliss which was directed by Rita Osei ?

Hélène Muddiman : It was a dream job! Rita is a joy to work with as she loves music and knows how to use it to bring out the many subtle details of all the elements that go into film making, so providing multilayered, subtle textures in the film that make it very artful.  Rita understands the importance of using a real orchestra, 'you can hear the blood in their veins', she describes it! We all took great pride finding the budget for a union score and recording on the iconic Newman Scoring Stage at Fox Studios in Los Angeles, where I live now. It was magical to be in the room with a diverse ethnicity and mixed gender of musicians all playing in sync with each other, site reading it and by the end getting it right first take! ... I can't articulate the thrill of the synergy that is in the room with so much talent and years of dedication to their craft... I wish more composers would hold out and insist on a bigger budget for real musicians... Samples sound ok to most but why are we catering to those who can't tell the difference? It is not good for the world to do things the cheapest way possible ... It's sad when production companies and broadcast networks don't appreciate the difference, the talents and the dedication involved in creating scores using real musicians playing real classic, vintage, expensive instruments, because for those people who can tell the difference it cheats them of the thrill of hearing music made the best way possible. Rita has a unique way of balancing the time for action, dialogue and music which makes the composer's job much more fulfilling to not have to compete with foley all the time as Rita allows room for the film to breath through the spaces she allows for the music...

Q: What is for you the best place to record the scores and why?

Hélène Muddiman : I personally believe that a system of residual and royalty payments is a really fair system. If the project does well all the creators can benefit, if it does not do well everyone has given of themselves and risked a little something of their time and talent. It's more of a team type mentality, which is why I like to record in USA. Sadly this system is being eroded ... Along with so many iconic studios throughout the world that have shut down for all the wrong reasons... In this golden age of creativity, when music and entertainment are consumed more than ever, things like youTube and Spotify are robbing us of our fullest cultural heritage. Add to which some in the music are profiting from stocks and shares in tech companies that build their businesses on the backs of creators and so deliberately keep the expenses paid to creators to a minimum. There is a load of money being made... But a lot is going into the wrong pockets. There is a myth that people don't want to pay for music anymore... This is not true! The reality is that they don't HAVE to pay for music anymore if tech companies find loopholes in the law to avoid paying for the music. As proved by Adele and Taylor Swift who went to great lengths to prevent their music from appearing on YouTube and Spotify and so people had to buy it and they did in their multi-millions! Most people don't realize that YouTube hides behind safe harbour laws and Spotify is part owned by major record companies who are waiting for their shares to be publicly sold so they can make a fortune abusing the rate court system that's controls what we earn and the government in USA has allowed them to beat down the price to a pittance that is especially strangling the songwriters. YouTube will tell you they paid $3billion over the last 10 years to the music business, but they don't tell you that Google (who owns YouTube) made over $600billion in that time period of which 96% of that profit was advertising revenue on other people's IP! That's over 200 times more! 20,000% mark up! People don't know this, and they should not have to know this nor should they have to stop to think how or why music is now 'free' - it's boring... It's the job of government to protect it's citizens from theft and abuse but right now the laws are allowing all creators to be abused and their work used with no system for payment in a free market. (We need a Free market not market that is free!!!!)
Creators are beginning to wise up to what is happening and realizing that they are being hoodwinked by propaganda that is trying to keep them from finally waking up to the truth that this is NOT 'just the way it is these days' - all technological revolution start with massive abuses, until finally we create a system that is fair ... Just like we did with radio and TV royalties and payment mechanisms. Creators of all kinds are uniting to make a new system on the internet. One that is ultimately democratic because it gives the consumers and creators the power over their data!

Q: What was your best memory while working on the The Cramp Twins animated series?

Hélène Muddiman : I was so jammy to get that job! I had made a plan to go to LA for 5 months with nothing more than hopes and dreams... Before I left I was so grateful to my agent, Karen Elliott then at Air Edel, who got me a meeting with the Cramp Twins team in London, and they offered it to me after hearing my theme tune, but the timing meant I would be in LA... I tried to sell them on the idea that it would not matter that I was going to be thousands of miles away and asleep when they were awake!!!! Their mouths dropped open.... I felt sure I was out of a job... 'No' they said, 'that is where the team are that you'll be working with!!!' That's surely the definition of jammy? I started work the day I arrived and I finished the 52 shows on exactly the day my arbitrarily arranged my plane ticket for! It was great fun working with another fantastic Director, Becky Bristow, who fought hard for me to have more budget to have more real musicians even though there were apparently many composers who could do it for less! I adored working with her, we laughed so much. We are still really great friends even though she went to open an animation school in China for years and years, we still kept in touch via Skype even when we weren't working together.

Q: What is for you the main difference working on music for a film, a tv series or advertising?

Hélène Muddiman : There are many differences, mainly time, budget and formats . Though time and budgets can vary even within genres depending on the production team. Sometimes the deadlines are crazy in any of the genres.. But the old saying still holds true 'pick any 2 - cheap, good or fast' you can't have all 3!!! I'm excited that TV and video games are areas of great quality... As we have lost many of the mid range budget movies but I am hopeful that these will return when we make better ways to compensate film makers.

Q: What are your favorite movies?

Hélène Muddiman’s So many depending what mood I am in... I loved Being There and Twelve Angry Men because the scripts are masterful. Betty Blue (Gabriel Yared) and Kingdom of Heaven (Harry Gregson-Williams) have beautiful scores. Terminator 2 was amazing in EVERY way and is how the future will look if we don't teach AI to at least humour us poor inferior humans! Bridges of Maddison County and Beaches can't be beaten for 'unabashedly bawling your eyes out' !!!! Movies like Grease and The Commitments, are fantastic for a singalong... Wall E is a wonderful example of teaching us without preaching to us and the art of family viewing whilst being deep! It's quicker to say what I am not a fan of.... Horror movies.... Which is a bummer cos I love to write horror music! But I still prefer thriller to horror!

Q: With which directors would you like to work with, and why?

Hélène Muddiman : Anyone who makes good movies that move people ... And anyone who cares about keeping musicians and all creators in a job I.e. They understand the importance of creating a sustainable ecosystem.

Q: What can you say about music and why it inspires you?

Hélène Muddiman : Music inspires me when it is so powerful it can affect your mood. In film we use this power to manipulate the audience... It tells you how to feel. Music can bring out emotions or suppress them.. It can elate or annoy. It is subjective , so film composers have the tricky job of trying to find ways to connect to as many people in the audience as possible through their score so as to serve the story ...

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

Hélène Muddiman : Working with loads of really clever, talented, creative people trying to reach as many other clever, talented, creative people in the audience as possible to tell stories that can help, inform, inspire and entertain them.

Q: What are your current project(s)?

Hélène Muddiman: More films with Rita, a series of Audio books with the brilliant Director Benjamin Alfonsi and also collaborating with ProTechU on The Digital DNA Genome Project. Www.protechu.org

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

Hélène Muddiman : Staying married, having 2 children and many truly amazing, kind and loving friends in what is supposed to be a fickle business!

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

Hélène Muddiman : Work as part of the creative community not just for yourself. Value your work and value the work of others. If you think Thomas Newman or John Williams should be paid to write music for a film then anyone good enough to be working on a film also deserves to make a living too. So I urge them to fight for musician's rights as this is a crucial time for humanity... A tipping point. Finally, be lucky ... Be in the right place at the right time, with the right skills and the right equipment - if you never give up and you've done the work... your time will come! All you have to do is live long enough... So take care of yourself and enjoy the journey, because this journey is what you make it.... So make it fun!

Credit photo : Ray Meese