Interview - The Space Between Us : Let's talk with Andrew Lockington

By Mulder, Los Angeles, 03 february 2017

Q: You have created so many great score as Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008), City of Ember (2008), Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013), San Andreas (2015), can you talk a little about your musical background and how did you became a film composer?

Andrew Lockington : I started playing the piano when I was very young. Both my parents had played but pursued careers in other fields. My parents wanted us to learn piano at a young age so my grandparents had their piano sent to our house. I took to it and really loved playing and writing songs, I didn’t enjoy the practicing as much though. Regardless, I stuck through it and studied it right through school. In my teen years I joined a band. I was only 15 and the rest of the band was in their mid to late 20’s. We had success on the local circuit as a result of the strong musicality of my band-mates. I learned a lot from them, about music and about life – including that life on the road in a bus going venue to venue wasn’t something I was cut out for. As a result I pursued music composition in University and quickly learned that film music was what I have a passion for. Fortunately for me, I crossed paths with Mychael Danna at a time when he was looking for an assistant. He has just scored The Ice Storm for Ang Lee and was in the process of finishing The Sweet Hereafter for Atom Egoyan. Mychael took me under his wing and mentored me into the business.

Q: You have worked several times with so much great directors as Brad Peyton, Richie Mehta, Michael McGowan. Can you talk about these long collaborations and what kind of memories do you keep about them ?

Andrew Lockington : It’s such an advantage to continue collaborations beyond one single film. The relationship between a director and a composer is an important one. We’ll talk about the emotional impact of the story and for me as a composer so much of the journey is about understanding the message the director is trying to tell. Getting inside their head means learning about who they are and what their views on life are, not just the factual nature of their story. As such, when you have an opportunity to collaborate with a director multiple times you’re able to begin where you left off. There’s an understanding from both sides that gives you a short-hand and allows you to delve much deeper into the story-telling process in a much shorter time.

Q: Recently you have worked on the Peter Chelsom’s movie The Space Between us . How did you process to create this score, which researches did you make to found the good approach ?

Andrew Lockington: I’d been a big admirer of Peter’s films for many years. We first met a few years ago when he was working on “Hector And The Search For Happiness”. Even before that, I remember seeing a film he did and being charmed by his gift of storytelling and his ability to pull great performances from actors. The week he started filming “The Space Between Us” I was in LA visiting the set of another film. Jason Markey, the Executive VP of Music at STX invited me to come to his office to catch up. He had just received the first dailies from the film set and gave me a sneak peak. We started talking about potential ideas for how to approach the score and we really hit it off. I left his office a few hours later completely inspired by what I had seen and the approach we’d discussed for scoring the film. A few weeks later I was in New Mexico meeting Peter Chelsom and the producer Richard Lewis on set. Peter and I went to dinner and immediately started rolling up our sleeves and mapping out the score approach.

Q: Were there any creative challenges in composing the music for the film The Space Between us? If so, how did you overcome them, or how did you work through them?

Andrew Lockington : The biggest creative challenge was that this film is such an epic, big film, with a small intimate love story interwoven within it. It was the challenge of how to score worlds and planetary travel while still scoring the coming of age of two young teenagers. Peter and I found that there were many parallels between these two elements, and as such the same themes could represent multiple elements of each aspect of the story. In addition, there were two complimentary approaches to instrumentation. One consisted of found / junkyard elements which I repurposed and rebuilt into new unique musical instruments. The other was the orchestral string element along with prepared / processed piano. As big a challenge as it felt to combine these two mediums, they both came together quite seamlessly in the end.

Q: Can you tell us an anecdote about your work of the amazing series Aftermath ? I discovered the thirteen episodes recently and the score is very important to create the apocalyptic ambience.

Andrew Lockington : I really enjoy working on that show. The opportunity came along just as I was starting another project. Knowing I couldn’t write every cue on my own, my longtime friend / sound designer / synth programmer Michael White and I embarked on co-writing that series together. I’d never written with another composer before, but I knew Michael’s work very well and had always hugely admired his musical gifts. The producers challenged us to write a score that was like nothing we’d even heard before. They told us that if it was something a listener could hum or play back on a piano we would have failed. In order to succeed in achieving their vision, it had to create terror and tension using instruments and means that the audience could never identify. We set out to create sounds using every way possible. One of my favourite was taking power tools in the backyard and recording them screaming through scrap wood and scrap metal. We then pulled the sound files into protools and started manipulating them using ring modulators, bit crushers and filters. There were a few cues that would literally make us jump in moments – even when we knew they were coming – those were the moments when we knew we’d achieved the goal assigned to us by the producers.

Q: You have received a lot of prizes as the Breakout Composer of the Year Award from the 2009 International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) Awards, for the scores of Journey to the Center of the Earth and City of Ember. How do you found a such great inspiration to create your music ?

Andrew Lockington : I love that every film is different and as such demands a different approach to the score. I’m in the process of researching for an upcoming film score right now, and recently spent 2 days with a Ugandan Children’s Choir. It’s a sound I’m not familiar with, and a tuning and harmonic world that is foreign to my equal-tempered ear. I love that. I love that it’s unfamiliar yet I am able to shape it using inspiration from the film and inspiration from my own life. Both are important. It’s important to protect your life experiences so you can relate to the experiences of the characters you’re scoring. I remember someone once asking me how I’m able to do my job and still be a father and husband. I responded by saying it’s actually not a disadvantage, but an advantage. I’m able to do my job much better because of those life experiences.

Q: What are for you the main differences between create a score for a movie and for a serie as Missing, Sanctuary, Primeval New World and Aftermath ?

Andrew Lockington : Time….definitely time. That’s the big one. A film like The Space Between Us I had 6 months to work on the score. A TV episode is usually a week. That’s quite a difference and writing for TV requires a more disciplined approach. On a film I’ll often have 3 months to write and explore theme ideas. On a TV episode it’s a day. You learn how to come up with ideas quickly and sculpt those ideas into variations and finished score cues immediately. In contrast, on a film I’ll usually aim to write 2-3 minutes a day. On TV sometimes it’s 10 minutes per day. There’s also a big advantage for TV though, in that you have the ability to evolve themes over a much longer time period. Instead of a theme running through it’s lifecycle in 90 – 120 minutes, it can survive throughout 13 hours of storytelling …..or even multiple seasons. It allows you to write more complex and more intricate themes with more elements to spin off and explore throughout the show.

Q: What is for you the purpose of a good score in a film ?

Andrew Lockington : I think a good score finds a way to tell a parallel telling of the story you see in the visuals. A good score doesn’t just re-iterate what you’re already seeing, but it ties thematic elements of the story together and draws parallels between characters who have similarities or relationships not always addressed. Most importantly, the score should offer emotional support for the audience. The word “support” being crucial, because the music should never deliver the emotion to the audience in such a way that they can stay removed, it must instead allow them an opportunity to arrive at an emotional state of mind , then use the ability of the music to enhance that.

Q: What is for you the best studio to record a score and why ?

Andrew Lockington : I have favourite studios for different things. I love recording in London – Air and Abbey Road. The musicianship is fantastic and the studios have so much inspirational residue left over in them from all the years of extraordinary artists who graced their recording floors. There are a few studios I love in LA for the same reason – the film music history there is incredible. I really like my Toronto studio for writing ideas because I feel it’s the place I’m usually at my most creative.

Q: Can you Talk a little bit about your composing or writing process ? Did you processed the same way at each time ?

Andrew Lockington : It’s different every time. I really try to follow a new path each time and get lost in a new and foreign world. Magic happens when you try to get your grounding someplace new. Sometimes it’s a unique set of instruments or using the musical rules of an exotic culture. Other times it’s restricting the structure, mode or scale you’re writing within as a way to force you down a path you wouldn’t normally go. I’m always writing themes and big picture ideas first – I think that’s why it’s so important to read the script each time. Using the script I see elements that inform the music approach. I can’t stress enough, I love this part – the researching and getting lost in a music world with a new set of tools to get out – it’s inspiring. Other times it’s sitting at a piano and watching the film for the first time. Those early ideas upon first watching are often the best ideas, best seeds from which to grow the score.

Q: What composers and/or music inspire you?

Andrew Lockington : Everyone and everything. Music is a difficult field to succeed in, and there are thousands of incredibly talented composers who don’t get the opportunity to prove themselves. As a result, everyone working is very talented in some way. When I was younger I was most inspired by film music, but as I started to find my own voice, I didn’t’ want to listen to other film composers any more. Now when I’m not in the studio, I listen to talk radio or reading books. Even when I’m not in the studio, my mind is trying variations on the themes in my head. I find it hard to have my own music running constantly inside my head only to have it suddenly clash with something from the outside world.

Q: Which directors you dream to work with and why ?

Andrew Lockington : My favourite directors are storytellers at heart. People who can get to the core of a story and unveil the emotional context in a manner that has a clear, individual point of view. To be completely honest, some of my favourite directors in film I’m already working with.

Q: Can you talk about your next projects ?

Andrew Lockington : I’m currently beginning the theme writing and research for a film call Rampage - it’s directed by Brad Peyton and stars Dwayne Johnson. I’m thrilled to be working with this talented San Andreas duo again. I also have a small indie film I’m scoring for director Mina Shum (one of my earliest collaborators) and the second season of Netflix’s Frontier starring Jason Momoa.

Q: Any advice to young film composers who want to specifically compose for movies?

Andrew Lockington : Write, write, write. Composing for film is so unlike writing music as a stand alone entity. It takes practice and time to figure out how best to write something that combines with the visuals that creates a multisensual experience. So practice. Find student films you can score for free, or rent movies and score the scenes without music already. If you’re persistent, your opportunity will come one, and you want to be ready.

We sincerely thank Andrew Lockington for answering our questions
An huge thanks to Molly McIsaac for helping us to have this great interview..