{"id":3681,"date":"2012-08-03T14:11:03","date_gmt":"2012-08-03T18:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/wpblog\/?p=3681"},"modified":"2012-08-13T10:47:40","modified_gmt":"2012-08-13T14:47:40","slug":"interview-budd-carr-on-having-the-best-job-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/interview-budd-carr-on-having-the-best-job-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Budd Carr on Savages and Having the Best Job in the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Budd Carr has one of the more easily envied job that I have ever heard of; he picks out the music that goes into major motion pictures. Music Supervisor is generally his official title, and he has played that role for eighty-eight films and television show since 1984, when he got his career started with\u00a0Terminator<\/em>. Budd, as he insists on being called, probably is best known for his work Oliver Stone, and indeed promotion of that director\u2019s most recent film,\u00a0Savages<\/em>, seemed to be the reason why Carr was giving interviews.<\/p>\n

When I called him, he had another lined up for right after ours. I had seen\u00a0Savages\u00a0<\/em>a few days before the interview, but, since I thought the movie was terrible, I focused our conversation more on his job generally. Budd was more than happy to oblige. He was kind, upbeat and made time to continue talking after the allotted fifteen minutes were up. By the end of our half hour interview, I coveted his job even more.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s a day on the job like when you\u2019re working on a movie?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carr: Wow, uh, that\u2019s a good question. Every day is different. Every movie has its different challenges, and you basically prioritize the challenges. When you\u2019re starting a picture like\u00a0Savages<\/em>, Oliver [Stone] got me in early\u2014script stage\u2014and we spent a couple hours a day for two to three days, listening to him about what he felt about the characters , what he felt about the film. He\u2019s a voracious music listener, and all of his movies have had great music choices, and they really come from a collaborative instinct between his instinct, myself and the picture editors. We start on a day saying, \u201cOk, we\u2019re gonna open in Southern California.\u201d So, what\u2019s the broad range of soundscape of Southern California, present day? Then you kind of prepare a hard drive, providing different takes. Classic beach music to current day Southern California listening stuff. You just kind of attack the project one step at a time. In this particular case, he wanted, basically, to get on a horse and ride off in all directions. \u201cGet me some Mexican music, get me some current hip-hop, get me some classic songs, get me some of what what kids are listening to.\u201d To say we end up with hard drives of hundreds and hundreds of songs is not unreasonable to say. Then the picture will tell you what works.<\/p>\n

So Oliver will give you a basic set of scenarios that he wants music for, and then you\u2019ll come up with some choices of songs he can have in those situation\u2014will he then have final say in terms of what goes into the movie?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carr: Absolutely. He\u2019ll tell me to stop [giving him song ideas], but because he likes to listen to music prior to shooting and during shooting, we\u2019ll burn CD\u2019s for him\u2014six to eight songs a cd\u2014in genres, in artists, and I\u2019ll get notes back. It\u2019ll be maybe three to four weeks before I get notes back [from Oliver]. With this film, we started with twenty or so \u201cOliver likes\u201d tracks. Those would be given to the picture editors, and if there were moments in the movie that [the tracks] work for them, they would then start to show them to me and then to Oliver. That\u2019s how the process begins, and in other instances there may be scenes in the movie that specifically needs something. Or we\u2019ve decided in looking at that particular scene we want to have something there. Oliver likes to do songs for score\u2014because I might not have one composer, there might be multiple composers, or it might be all song. So [the process for\u00a0Savages<\/em>] was a search and destroy kind of thing. We\u2019d try and score a song for a scene and it wouldn\u2019t work. You kind of go through a process. One you get a sense of the kind of thing he likes, then you try to clear them: sometimes get approval, sometimes not get approval, sometimes budget works within, or sometimes you make shit up. The Miles De Pasajeros mashup in this movie came from a variety of Latin approaches that we had in a folder, and our Music Editor, Carl Kaller, just kind of said, \u201cI\u2019ve got an idea,\u201d and took the four tracks and made a mashup of it and placed it over a scene and Oliver goes, \u201cthat works.\u201d<\/p>\n

When you look for music to show Oliver, where do you look?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carr: [Sighs] You know, everywhere. Over the years you kind of build up a catalogue. Even after purging recently, I still have thousands of CD\u2019s. You may just go back and start looking through files and go oh gosh that\u2019s a great thing. From a current aspect, we have a list of probably a hundred plus contacts within the industry, both from major labels and indie labels, to indie artists to companies that go out and search for new bands. and we\u2019ll put together a hitlist of things we\u2019re looking for and they\u2019ll send us links and myself and my coordinators will go through it and pick some things. Sometimes Pandora, sometimes that\u2019s a resource. You moth toss a song in there and make a playlist and all of a sudden you\u2019re listening to it in the background and you go, \u201cwhat the hell is that?\u201d One of my coordinators years ago worked for them in their kind of, think-tank they have. We use Spotify. I\u2019ll take suggestions from cab drivers. There\u2019s so many great resources for music, you can\u2019t count any of them out. I had no idea when we started this project who Yuna was. [Her cover of “Here Comes the Sun” is used in the final scene of the movie.] Her album wasn\u2019t even out, but she was the suggestion of a manager friend. It worked out great for her and for us. You have to keep yourself open to everybody\u2019s thought.<\/p>\n