Award-winning composer Simon Franglen gave an inspiring masterclass at the Mediterrane Film Festival this morning, interviewed by George Christopoulos, Founder and Agency Director at OTICONS Film Music Agency.
The conversation started with an exploration into the beginning of Franglen’s career becoming a session producer, learning from some of the best in the industry before working on the iconic soundtrack for the 1992 film Bodyguard. Franglen went on to share insights into his impressive credits, describing his experience working on acclaimed projects including Titanic, where he began what would become a long-term collaboration with director James Cameron.
Franglen then provided audiences with a behind-the-scenes look at the intricate work of composing for film, demonstrating the impact of a score on a clip from Avatar: The Way of Water, highlighting the importance of respecting and working with the dialogue and sound effects, not against them.
He described how the score of a film takes the audience on a journey, and how the role of a composer is to manipulate an audience’s emotions. He feels that without properly capitalising on this element of filmmaking, directors do a disservice to their craft, as it’s such a powerful tool and an integral part of the storytelling. He talked in depth about evaluating the scale of the work each project presents and adjusting accordingly, for example how for a smaller film he would take a completely different approach as to avoid ‘delaminating’ – a term he used to describe when the score and the film has lost its connection.
Christopoulos also asked Franglen his opinion on emerging technology and AI, to which Franglen responded by pointing out how this could become a real problem for the industry. He discussed the danger of many jobs in the composing industry disappearing within three years, with TV and commercial opportunities that are so important for people entering the industry becoming obsolete with production companies opting to use AI for lower budget projects and therefore losing the bottom layer of composition opportunities.
He also noted the possibility of being “submerged in a layer of grey”. As AI tools look for connections and popularity films will have a lot of repetition, falling in this ‘grey area’ with no outliers or unique qualities. He then took a series of questions from the audience in a lively Q&A segment which rounded out the masterclass.