Based at Sir Peter Jackson’s renowned Park Road Post Production in New Zealand, Stephen Gallagher is an acclaimed composer and music editor whose career boasts an impressive range of projects. From global blockbuster movies to popular television productions and independent documentaries, Stephen’s past roles include serving as Supervising Music Editor for Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, where he also contributed original music alongside Brian Eno’s score. He was also Music Editor for the smash hit sci-fi film District 9 and The Hobbit trilogy in which he was also composer of two of the songs in An Unexpected Journey.
His outstanding work was recognized in 2022 when he earned both a Golden Reel and an Emmy Award for his contributions to Peter Jackson’s lauded documentary series The Beatles: Get Back.
Here we speak to Stephen about the roles of music editor and composer, what the jobs involve and how Sonuscore products inspire his work.
COMPOSER INTERVIEW: STEPHEN GALLAGHER
How would you sum up your journey to becoming being a music editor and composer today?
Stephen: I think in some ways it felt like a series of happy accidents. Although once I started getting into music editing and my first job, I remember being really scared and intimidated, but also excited and motivated to learn more. It’s one of those situations where you feel like you don’t quite know how you got to this place, but it feels like everything you’ve done up until this point has prepared you to be here and there’s a skill set that you’ve garnered from a variety of different jobs or projects or experiences that have somehow made sense.
If you ask somebody to name a movie composer, they’ll probably say Hans Zimmer, John Williams, John Barry etc but you’re unlikely to have somebody name a synth head. Do you think there’s a danger in our industry that we define composing as orchestras and big scores?
I think maybe that might have used to have been the case, but I don’t think so anymore. I think there’s so many exciting composers making great scores with non-traditional instruments, or traditional instruments used in non-traditional ways. Looking back over the history of film, there’s been several instances where you have these, what probably seemed, maverick examples of the use of technology to support a story. Wendy Carlos, for example. Such an incredible musician with incredible technical ability both in terms of music and sound design. Wendy’s score for The Shining and Tron are extraordinary. Think of Doctor Who (Delia Derbyshire’s use of electronics to re-imagine the Doctor Who theme is extraordinary), the work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Daphne Oram… I find that entire area of music mind blowing and extremely inspiring.
In the last decade, there’s been so many exciting scores – Stranger Things, Under The Skin to name but two. Daniel Pemberton, who is one of my absolute favourite composers, takes such a fun approach to incorporating different sounds. The Spider-Verse scores, the things that he did are amazing – integrating turntables, amplified felt tip pens, just really cool and creative stuff. I read something in which Hans Zimmer had said that the next extraordinary score will be created by someone in their garage using an iPad. The technology is such that now we’re getting great scores made by people who you might not traditionally consider composers using all manner of instruments. I don’t think it’s novelty. It’s exciting.
Do you approach a score in terms of musicality or in terms of medium or both? Is the starting point different each time?
I think, to start from the beginning, it’s a collaborative process, so it’s not like you’re working in a vacuum. You’re working with a director and a producer or a team of storytellers. Ideally, prior to the music making process, there are some discussions or script reading or even just viewing pictures together. The story can suggest a lot of things and, depending on how discussions with the director or your creative team go, can start you off in different directions.
Does a director sometimes bring up medium early on in the conversation? Will they say, I want it to sound synthy, or I want it to be big and huge with a score?
I’ve had that experience where a director has had a sound, a type of music or a reference in their mind before they even shoot the film, which can be a great leaping off point. Then occasionally, once they’ve filmed or shot footage and edited the film, the music that they had in mind doesn’t seem to quite convey what they need to convey in their score. But yeah, regardless of whether it does or doesn’t, having those conversations at an early point are important so you can get your thought process going and point you into some starting directions.
People can ask if it can sound like The Rite of Spring, or late period Scott Walker, or Thomas Newman’s Road to Perdition, they can be that specific, but they can also somehow give you more enticing challenges or prompts. I remember one film, the director said he wanted the score to sound like it’s made of objects that were left abandoned on an island for a couple of decades. I thought, that’s exciting, that’s a great prompt, it’s vivid and really generous in terms of just saying here’s the broad outline of what I’m thinking, let’s start there.
How did you end up in music editing, and does it ever feel like you’re on the B team when you’re doing that compared to when you’re composing? Do you think people should consider the music editor role as composers?
B- Team? Not at all! It’s a privilege to be able to sit there and be a part of the process without the weighty mantle of having to write the music for the entire film, and I find it educational. I’m fascinated about how composers and directors approach making music for their films and the thought and intent that go behind it. Each composer that I’ve had the privilege of being on a team with has come to the creation of the score in a slightly different manner. Like watching Simon Franklin do the second Avatar film. I was on that film for only a couple of months but watching him sit down and make the music was so inspiring, so incredible. It was such a privilege to be able to see his process and his fluency with his equipment and his inherent musicality and how it translates through the technology, and it just sounded effortless. He’s such an incredible composer.
Do you think we’re in danger sometimes of forgetting that making music for a movie is a team sport because it’s often the case that the composer is singled out?
That’s what I love about being a music editor. I think sometimes being a composer can feel a little lonely, even though you are part of a team. It’s so many hours in front of a screen, just writing and not interfacing with other people, but with music editing, you always feel like you are part of a team and I like the collaboration.
What’s a typical day in the life of a musical editor? What kind of things will you do in that role?
It can be lots of different things from making a temp score to early picture cuts, spotting the film through with the composer and director, taking spotting notes, denoting where the cue starts, where the cue ends, what the cue’s intent is, getting a running total of how much music needs to be written, preparing cues for the scoring stage, conforming picture, conforming sessions, creating custom click tracks for the scoring stage… editing takes…
Does that mean that you’re the kind of interface between the director and the music people?
You can be, yeah, it depends on different projects. The nature of the job can change, and the nature of your involvement varies but yeah, often you are. My friend Mark Willsher summed it up when he said that the music editor is basically responsible for the music in the film because there’ll be a point where the composer has written the score, delivered the music to the dub stage and then they move on to their next project, whereas you will come on as a music editor and, if you go through the dub, you are basically the representation for the music department. It is incumbent on you to make sure that the music arrives out into the world in the best shape it possibly can with regards to both the director’s intent and the composer’s intent.
I have a flippant take where I say it’s more like being a midwife in the sense that the composer and the director have already done the creative act and your job is just to help birth it into the world in the way that the parents intended. Even once it’s a wrap on the dub stage, you’re still responsible for deliverables and, as we know, the list of deliverables for media these days is ever growing. So yeah, I feel very fortunate to be able to have done music editing and still would love to do more, but it wasn’t a career that I ever knew existed and I fell into it by accident, but I’m very glad I did.
You’re an accomplished composer and you use Sonuscore’s THE SCORE in your work, but one of the concerns people have about THE SCORE is that it’s just a case of pressing a button and you instantly become a composer. How do you feel about that?
I have to admit that I approached it a little bit trepidatiously and then when I got into it, I was like, oh, okay, it does these things, and then I went a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper, and I love it.
The two main reasons I love it are this… From an educational point of view, if you want to break down how different musical feels kind of work, this is a great tool for that. It’s fantastic. Secondly, it’s a great circuit breaker for me, and what I mean by that is very often when you are in a situation composing for a film or TV show or any kind of medium, it can be very easy to fall into a sort of mode of thinking, a mode of listening, and a mode of musical expression. What I like about THE SCORE is that I turn it on, and I can flip through several different Stories that instantly break me out of musical tunnel vision.
So rather than this make you lazy, it almost has the opposite effect, does it?
Oh, absolutely. What’s remarkable with THE SCORE is that you can go through these different Stories, deconstruct them analyse them and see what they’re made of. I love that. For me it’s fun, exciting…and educational.
The other thing I really like about it is that it’s the first sort of library for Kontakt, that I can remember, where it’s almost close to being a DAW. There’s a number of things you can do, like you can enter MIDI in, you can alter meter, you can just try ideas out. I don’t know if I’d ever make something completely in The Score and say, okay, this is my finished composition, but I absolutely would use it as a jumping off point and a place to find inspiration fast. I think that’s very cool.
What would your advice be to those who are trying to make a living out of this?
I think luck has a lot to do with it. I’ve been lucky in the sense that I’ve been fortunate enough to work with a great group of people and I’ve been constantly inspired and educated by most of those I’ve worked with. I love doing it and I’m excited about doing it. If it means that I get to work on something like The Beatles, that’s incredible. If it means I get to work on something like an indie, low key film it’s all part of the experience. So, I think the advice would be, everybody’s journey is different and while it’s easy to want to compare yourself to other people, I think there’s something that inherently is true for you, is true for your experience, your outlook and your path, whatever it is and however long it takes. Try to appreciate it, even though sometimes you may feel like you’re not quite in the position you want to be.
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As you can see, whether used for sketching or developing more polished works, THE SCORE is the fastest way to turn your ideas into musical reality. Check out our product page for more.
