I know this has been circling for a few days, but wanted to bring some attention to it here... We, as composers, are at the mercy of what the directors/producers vision for their film (which we should all remember, it's their film after all!), but at the same time we can judged on the quality of how we compose, because of the product produced. I feel this was a very gracious and informative post he made the other day that should clear up some questions anyone may have about the score for "Black Hat" : "Dear all, I would like it to be known for what it’s worth that the ‘score’ for Blackhat maybe credited to me, but contains almost none of my compositions. I attended the premiere of the movie at the end of last week and discovered, to my horror, music that shocked and surprised me…quasi emotional (synth) string pieces that I’d never heard in my life before. I knew of at least one other composer, a good one at that(!), that had put in months of work on this movie just as I had, but this appeared to me to be in addition to both our contributions. To be honest, I’m not sure, as I’m having a hard time understanding what I heard and why it was there and I can say nothing for certain except that I was not the author of most of what is now in the movie. I feel like I want to point this out for anyone who like me cares about these things, as my name is right there listed as the lead composer and one would expect that credit to mean something, but it doesn’t. And I do care about that. I therefore reluctantly join the long list of composers who have had their scores either sliced and diced mercilessly or ignored completely by Michael Mann. This is his film and these are his decisions and I do respect that, but see no reason to have people mistake this score for one that I composed, or in any way approved of musically. The 90 minutes of score that I did write and deliver is, as I’ve said, mostly unused. I would still encourage you to check out his movie, as you may enjoy it. Harry"
I can really identify with that right now albeit on a MUCH smaller scale. I am on the crew to compose music for a VERY long short (about 40 to 45 minutes). The filmmaker understandably was two months behind schedule on production. When he finished shooting we talked about different approaches to spotting and he decided to give me a non-frozen complete film to look at. He then put in temp tracks for the opening and ending and asked me to work on that. I did the opening first and he loved that. Then I looked at what he gave me for the end and he started it in the middle of the final scene which did not make sense to me since the whole scene had no dialog. I backed it up about 20 seconds (as far back as I could go without going over a scene still being edited). I composed it exactly with the same feel - his temp tracks were Thomas Newman's from Shawshank Redemption. I am glad I delivered the tracks before I started work on the end titles. He told me that they did not match the feel he wanted and he apologized for starting the temp track where he did - he intended to leave the beginning of the temp out and forgot. Then he felt bad for all the work I spent on the final scene music and offered to pay me (which I turned down - its a no budget short). Then he offered to have me work the spot with a different instrumentation but I knew that is really not the sound he had in mind so we agreed to scrap the music to the final scene and do it again from scratch. I am a bit disappointed but looking at the big picture (no pun intended), I am there like any other person on the team - to support the film and not to showcase my music. THIS is how in my mind it should be and the frank and evergoing communication between the 'stakeholders' and the composer. Sadly, this communication seems to happen much more on the low end where the films are not managed by companies with rather large budgets. I would hope that the composer or a designate is able to attend the mix session at the end. That is what the standard textbooks on composing say and suggest. But in the real world, that is not what always happens and apparantly did not happen in this case as Harry did not hear the soundtrack until the film was released. I would normally suggest that he should have been paid for his effort as a work for hire but in this case, I wonder if they paid twice - to him and to those who actually wrote the music that was included? Its a big mess and unfortunately not unique to this film. We both (and others) are well aware of many films where a composer was hired, scored a whole film and then replaced with another composer who scored the film again (though to tell the truth, leading actors/actresses could probably cite similar acting situations). Those who choose to play with the 'big boys' and score in the Hollywood arena have to know its not all artistic and to expect politics and big company interactions. No different from all those 23 years I spent in IT at Exxon (or before that as a military officer in the Air Force). Shame, I like Harry's cues and one of his cues (called "Smile") from Denzel's Man On Fire got picked up by Omega in 2013 and became the score for its commercial which was absolutely beautiful.
Here's the Follow-up from Michael Mann - OUCH! http://variety.com/2015/biz/news/michael-mann-responds-to-composers-crit...
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yes Ouch! First of all Harry is an experienced Hollywood composer. He knows it is work for hire and that the film company/director can do whatever they want even if he doesn't like it. Shame he was not at or intentionally left out of the final mixing session (whichever it was) where he or his surrogate could have been there to represent the 'interests' of his score. Harry further should have known that what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas - this should have never gone public - that is no way to resolve his displeasure and definitely would have no impact on a film which was already released. 95%, possibly more, don't care who was in the end credits and where the music came from - they just watch the film and leave when its done. He should have known that anything going into social media is public and 'laundry' - you can't take it back once its out. Finally Harry is not new to the scene - he has been around these directors for years and probably well knew "Michael Mann's" proclivity to hire composers and then pick and choose what he wanted to use. Harry knew that and signed on knowing that and assumed that 'risk'. I assume he was well paid for his music and once he realized his music was not in the film, he needed to get frustrated to himself and those close to him (privately). Realize that this affirmed what he already knew about Michael Mann, and just moved on and found work elsewhere with those who appreciate his work and are more inclined to spot the film with him and then use what he produced. I really enjoy what Harry has written and arranged - the music is gorgeous. However, there are two 'customers' when we write commissioned music - the main customer is that who hired us, our next customer are those who perform what we write. One 'may' argue that as we are part of a film team, those are our sole customers. Those who view the film are not our customers - they are the producer's customers (but even then only secondarily to those who have funded the film - who are the producers primary customers).
Great article.