Exclusive David Arnold Interview

STATIC MASS: How familiar were you with the world of Narnia before Michael asked you to score the film?

DAVID ARNOLD: I’d seen the previous movies when they came out in the theatres, but I hadn’t watched them since. I read the books when I was very, very young. I remember reading the first three and not really getting beyond that. But when he asked me to do it I re-read the entire series just to re-immerse myself in that world because I know it’s a world that involves a very spiritual aspect so I didn’t want to be coming into this thing thinking you can just do what you want. You have to be duly respectful of the source material and also of the work that had gone before.

The key thing was returning to the magic and putting the magic back from the first one more than the second one. Rather than going back and watching the films again, I kind of revisited that world in my imagination as I had done when I was really young and that music appeared to me and as it occurred to me from the book. I thought that’s probably a good place to come from because that’s where the heart of the thing is, in the actual text.

STATIC MASS: Was this a decision made quite early on, that the films would be connected, despite a change in director and studio?

DAVID ARNOLD: I’m not sure if anyone expected me to do it. Someone asked me if I was going to do it and I always fully expected to do it because this isn’t a series of films that is old, it’s a fairly recent phenomenon and I think to establish a template and a blueprint of what the music should be, Harry had done all of that.

It would have been churlish or ignorant to abandon those ideas that people had used so well in the first two films. I wanted it to feel like part of a series, rather than just a complete stand-alone story, although the story is completely different to the others.

We’re not really in Narnia beyond the first five minutes and when they arrive, even then, they’re sailing away from Narnia and going somewhere else. I thought we could bookend the film with Harry’s music, which I thought would be a nice way to do it because once we actually start off on the journey with the Dawn Treader itself we go to all these different places we’d never been before so it made sense to write new music because a) for the Dawn Treader, b) for all these new places they’re going to and c) the situations they encounter. They are completely different to the others.

STATIC MASS: The score, along with the overall sound design both work very well in the film. How did you go about balancing the two?

DAVID ARNOLD: We took a lot of time and trouble trying to make that happen in an emotional as well as a visceral sense. Part of it is obviously the really sophisticated sound systems nowadays and part of it is in the dynamics. The whole sea Serpent sequence is so loud, we were loud through some of it but not all of it. Hopefully you had a feeling when you needed to feel a bit more than be shocked by something, in a visceral way music would play. If it was a visceral shock then there would be a scream or a roar or a shout or a sound of breaking wood, or the ship crashing about on the ocean.

I thought it was a reasonably good balance of music and effects and I tried to be aware of what the effects were doing and work alongside what the effects guys were doing as well. When they had temps of work they were doing, they would turn them to me so I could write alongside the sound effects. So I knew when the sound effects we going to be louder there would be no point in me joining alongside them.

STATIC MASS: Were the core pieces written before work with the orchestra started?

DAVID ARNOLD: It was a 90 day process, writing and recording the music for this film. The actual recording process was only 10 days so there was 80 days of writing and preparation, then 10 days of recording. No one sees the music until the orchestra turns up. The first time they play it is the first time they see it. Five minutes later it’s rehearsed and recorded. It’s an extraordinary testament to the talent of these musicians really. You don’t have the luxury of trying things out with them because it all costs money. You have to do all that beforehand.

STATIC MASS: It’s a hard task isn’t it, to find musicians who can tell all these different parts of a story in a short space of time?

DAVID ARNOLD: What you find at this level is that the standard of musicians is so high; these are musicians who might be playing Narnia with me during the day and then going out and doing Beethoven or playing at Ronnie Scotts or playing in the West End in the evenings. Then the next morning they might do a jingle for a coffee commercial and then they’ll come in and record some score for another film.

Like good actors, they can adapt to pretty much anything. I think it also comes down to the writing. If you put the right notes in front of them they will certainly make them sound the way you want them to sound.

When they rehearsed onto a recording there are things you discuss with them about the tone, the feel of the piece and what you’re trying to achieve emotionally. They’ll respond to that as much as they will notes about mechanics, the dynamics of a piece and harmony. I thought they did a fantastic job, considering they don’t get to see the music until the day when it’s put in front of them when we’re recording it, which is an amazing thing. That’s why I love recording in London, that’s where the talent is, that supreme A-list, nothing’s a problem.

STATIC MASS: As this is all about Narnia, what would your magical world be like?

DAVID ARNOLD: This year I’ve done four films and two TV shows, I’ve done a video game. I’ve done a theme tune for Ben Stiller for his mum and dad for their online little comedy film! I’ve had six days off for the past year so at the moment my magical place would be my front room with the curtains drawn watching some endless cookery program with the phone not ringing!