Jeremy [Six Strings]: Can you tell us
how you became involved with "APOLLO 11" film and how did you approach
this score different from the last score?
Matt Morton:
I’ve been friends with and have worked with the director, Todd Douglas
Miller, since we were kids growing up in Gahanna, Ohio (a suburb of
Columbus). He was the singer in my high school band “651” (I played
guitar), and after high school, he went to film school at Eastern
Michigan and I went on to Denison University where I started another
band (with some other Gahanna friends) called “The Shantee”. That band
stayed together for 9 years - we recorded several albums and toured all
over the country. Todd started working on commercials in Detroit, and
we kept in touch. He would come out to shows and occasionally film
them. He used some music from my band in his first feature-length
documentary ‘Gahanna Bill’.
The Shantee kind of hit a glass
ceiling in the early 2000s. We were being offered recording,
publishing, and distribution deals, but because digital piracy had
really hurt record companies’ profits, they weren’t offering very good
deals to bands at our level. Around this time, I started doing my first
composing gigs - mostly little web videos and ads for clothing
retailers, hospitals, and charities. I started having more fun making
tracks in my home studio than I was having on the road, and it meant I
could make more money from my music too. This was about 2004 when I
left my band and Todd and I started working on our first projects
together.
We worked in obscurity for years, slowly learning our
craft by making everything from web videos to shorts to feature-length
narratives and docs. Luckily, we got to make lots of mistakes before
many people were paying attention to us. They say that every overnight
sensation takes at least 10 years, and for us, that was definitely
true. In 2014, we finally got our first big chance to get noticed.
With the help of IFP (Independent Filmmaker Project) in New York City,
we got ‘Dinosaur 13’ into Sundance and we world premiered on opening
night. After a bidding war, Lionsgate and CNN Films acquired the
distribution rights. It had a brief theatrical run, but it really found
its audience when it played on CNN. It won an Emmy in 2015 for
Outstanding Science and Technology Programming.
After we won the
Emmy for CNN, they asked us if we had any short film ideas, which led to
the 2016 Apollo 17 short documentary ‘The Last Steps’ (CNN Films, Great
Big Story). Like ‘Apollo 11’, it was constructed completely from
archival footage. It ended up being very popular with online viewers,
so with the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing coming up, CNN
Films approached us about making a feature-length archival documentary
about Apollo 11.
Jeremy [Six Strings]: How much creative
freedom did you have while working on "APOLLO 11" film and what would
you like the audience to take away from the score?
Matt
Morton: Any film score is a collaboration, which is one of my favorite
things about making them. And since Todd and I have worked together for
so long, we trust each other’s skills and vision a lot. With that said
though, when I told Todd my idea to do a synth-driven score using only
instruments and effects that existed at the time of the mission (1969),
he was hesitant and needed some convincing (note: the following
paragraphs are from the production journal I was asked to write about my
approach to the score).
In the spring of 2017 when I found out I
was going to have the honor of scoring this film, the historical
importance of the Apollo 11 Mission almost paralyzed me - how could I
ever do it justice? I'm a huge science nerd, and I put humankind's
first steps on an alien world right up there with the first time a fish
walked on land. It was an evolutionary milestone. How do you put that
into music? And on the other hand, considering the huge number of films
and film scores that had already been made on the subject, how would I
find a unique way to score it?
I approached it like a method
actor, by exhaustively researching the mission and all of the films that
were made about it. I read tons of books and watched and re-watched
every documentary and narrative film about the Apollo Program that I
could find. I revisited the music of the time (I've loved 1960s music
my whole life), and the ways that authors and the general public reacted
to the event when it happened. And since the action centers on the
astronauts and mission control, I also tried to think about what it must
have felt like to be one of them at each step of the way. I knew Todd
(the director) wanted it to feel like you're right there with them on
the mission, so the score needed to ratchet up the tension and
excitement that they were all experiencing.
But I also thought it
was important that, since we'd only be seeing archival footage from
1969, we should only hear sounds that could have been made at the time
of the mission. A lot of the 'Apollo 11' team (including Todd and I)
also worked on 'The Last Steps', a short documentary about our last
manned mission to the Moon, Apollo 17 in 1972. Like 'Apollo 11', that
film used all archival footage, but for that score, I used any
instrument or effect that fit my approach to the scene, including modern
ones. I love that score in its own right, but one of my thoughts after
the fact was that it sometimes took me out of the feeling of "being
there" in 1972 when I heard modern-sounding drum loops or super-lush
digital reverbs. So when we got the chance to tell Apollo 11's story, I
got to learn from that experience and try a new approach.
My
breakthrough, as far as narrowing down my approach and palette for the
score, came when I started thinking about the fact that at the time, the
Apollo Program was at the absolute cutting edge of science and
technology. The sheer amount of money spent (around 3% of our GDP) and
the number of people working on it (over 400,000 people) have been
credited with fast-forwarding the normal pace of technological
innovation by about 10-20 years. I started thinking about whether there
were any parallels in the music world of the time. Were there any
technological developments happening then that lead to new types of
music being made? What was the avant garde music of the time like? And
would any of that new music and music technology be useful in scoring a
dangerous and heart-racing space adventure in a 6.5 million pound
rocket?
My answer was the synthesizer and the huge world of
electronic and experimental music that it enabled after its development
in the 1960s. In 1963-1964, Bob Moog (in upstate New York) and Don
Buchla (in San Francisco) were each independently developing the first
modern (non-room-sized) modular synthesizers, unaware of each other's
work at opposite ends of the country. They steadily refined and
expanded these instruments throughout the decade and they began being
used by the few commercial composers and university professors who could
get access to them (at the time, they cost the equivalent of a house).
In 1968, Wendy Carlos released her album 'Switched On Bach' (which were
multi-tracked recordings of classic Bach pieces played entirely on a
Moog synthesizer), and after its release, the Moog synthesizer blew up.
In the years that followed, the synthesizer began being used on
recordings by mainstream artists like The Beatles, The Who, Keith
Emerson, and Pink Floyd, as well as electronic music pioneers like
Tangerine Dream, Isao Tomita, Suzanne Ciani, Kraftwerk, and Giorgio
Moroder. Today, the synthesizer's reach is immense, but it had its big
bang around the time of the Apollo 11 Mission. The futuristic sound of
the synthesizer also fit in perfectly with the technological focus and
futuristic look of our film.
So by late 2017, I had decided to
only use instruments and effects of that were available in 1969, but I
didn't actually own any synthesizers older than my Moog Minimoog Model D
(which was released in 1970). This is when I got lucky. That year,
Moog Synthesizers had decided to build (reissue) 25 of their classic
Synthesizer IIIc modular synthesizers using the same parts and
construction methods they used back in 1968. I decided to make the
(sizable) investment to buy one of them and use it as a central voice in
my score. When I combined the Moog IIIc with other vintage pieces
including a Binson Echorec 2 (an early tube echo restored and modified
by Soundgas Ltd.), a Mellotron (an early tape-based keyboard sampler), a
1965 Hammond A-143 Organ, a Leslie (rotating) Speaker, various guitar
tube amps, spring and plate reverbs, early drum machines like the
Maestro Rhythm King and Ace Tone Rhythm Ace, and an Echoplex EP-2 (a
tube tape echo), I had a formidable palette of period sounds for the
score. I started experimenting with all the gear and seeing what kinds
of sounds I could get out of them. I produced hours of music that no
one will ever hear, but some of those experiments actually made it into
the final score, including the opening cue "The Burdens and the Hopes"
which plays under the suiting-up and leaking valve scenes. I've also
posted a few of my synth and musique concrete experiments (the ones I
knew wouldn't work in the film) on my Instagram. The only other
ingredient was the orchestra, which of course also existed at the time.
My
original concept for the compositions was to make them sound like they
were archival just like the film footage, or in other words, to make it
sound like they were written, played, and recorded in 1969 by musicians
and engineers of the time. But then I realized I could never really do
that - it would only ever be an emulation. It wouldn't ring true
because as an artist, in order to get the best music out of myself, I
have to stay authentic to myself and my tastes, and I live in the
present. I wasn't born until 1977, and I didn't start playing my first
instrument (guitar) until 1986. So I decided the most interesting thing
I could do was to make modern compositions, but because I'd be using
the instruments and effects of 50 years ago, they'd probably be a unique
mixture of then and now and help to bridge the time gap between the
people on the screen and the people in the audience.
Jeremy [Six Strings]: Please tell us a
little more about yourself, that isn't in your official bio and which
composer inspired you to get into being a composer... why?
Matt
Morton: I grew up in a family without any professional musicians or
artists, but I still developed a strong love of music at a very young
age because of my dad's huge record collection. My urge to play and
create music grew directly from my love of it. I almost didn’t have a
choice - I had to learn how to do it myself.
I started on guitar
when I was 9, but I wasn't satisfied with playing just one instrument
for very long. I’ve continued learning and acquiring new instruments
(and recording gear) my whole life. Although my strongest instruments
are still guitar and bass, I’ve learned keyboards, drums, ukulele,
charango, ronroco, banjo, cuatro, etc. I think that comes from a
realization that all the instruments, including the way they’re recorded
and mixed, have an effect on the final track and the way that it's felt
by the listener. I guess I just kept following my curiosity and kept
learning how to play the parts of each of the musicians and engineers
until I was able to make full recordings all by myself. I’d say I’m
almost as interested in engineering and producing music as I am in
composing it.
As for which composer inspired me to become one, it
didn’t really happen that way for me. I feel like I fell backwards
into it. I didn’t grow up dreaming of being the next John Williams or
Jerry Goldsmith. I wanted to be the next Jimi Hendrix, Brian Wilson,
George Martin, or Jimmy Page - the guys mixing the power of rock and pop
songwriting with the power of the recording studio. I started getting
interested in orchestral instruments more because of ‘Sgt. Pepper’ and
‘Pet Sounds’ at first, but once I got bitten by the orchestral bug, I
started working my way back through the huge history of orchestral
concert music, and I also became much more attuned to film scores.
Composing for film is really the ultimate medium for me because I get to
combine my love of so many different kinds of music with my love of
recording and using the studio as an instrument.
Jeremy [Six Strings]: After working on "APOLLO 11" film, what is next and what do you use to inspire your next project?
Matt
Morton: I have a bunch of ideas for what I might want to do next,
including possibly taking a short break from scoring to record a solo
album using the same 1969 palette I used for 'Apollo 11’ (but without
having to limit the track lengths or keep arrangements minimal in order
to stay out of the way of dialogue). But whatever my next film scoring
job is, I will draw my inspiration from the story and the way the
filmmakers want to tell it. If you do it right, each score should have
its own character and palette, and they should always be defined by what
will help the storytelling process. One of my favorite parts of
composing is deep-diving into the background of the story and searching
for clues that will help me enhance it in a meaningful way. I have to
really believe in the project or else I can’t make good music for it.
Hopefully whatever comes along next will be even more inspiring than the
Apollo 11 mission, but that’s a pretty tall order!
About Matt
Morton... is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and engineer/producer
from Columbus, Ohio. He started on the guitar at age 9 and went on to
learn the bass, piano, drums, mandolin, cuatro, charango, ukulele,
banjo, and the cello. He was a founding member, lead guitarist, and
vocalist for The Shantee (rock band), and has recorded several albums,
toured nationally, and opened for bands including George Clinton and
Parliament/Funkadelic, Blues Traveler, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones,
the Neville Brothers, Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers, Widespread
Panic, and The National.
His feature-length scores include
'Scaring the Fish' starring Max Casella and Anthony Rapp, John Urbano's
Panama documentary 'Beauty of the Fight', Todd Douglas Miller's
Emmy-winning Sundance documentary 'Dinosaur 13' (Lionsgate, CNN Films),
and 'Apollo 11' (NEON, CNN Films). His short-form and commercial clients
include CNN Films (their Apollo 17 short documentary 'The Last Steps'),
SapientNitro, Ketchum, JPMorgan Chase, Wendy's, Scotts Miracle-Gro,
American Eagle, Hollister Co., JDRF, Mercy Health, and the Children of
Fallen Patriots Foundation. He is also the founder of the music
production company Studio 651 Ltd. and its publishing division, Studio
651 Publishing (BMI).
Matt's most recent project is the
feature-length, all-archival documentary 'Apollo 11'. He wrote,
orchestrated, performed, recorded, and mixed all of the original music
for the film, as well as the teaser trailer and the theatrical trailer.
Every instrument and effect used in the score existed at the time of the
mission in 1969 including a Moog modular Synthesizer IIIc (a reissue of
the 1968 version - 1 of 25 in the world), a Binson Echorec 2 (tube
echo), a Mellotron (early keyboard sampler used by The Beatles, Led
Zeppelin, etc.), a Hammond organ, various period drum machines, and the
orchestra. The Soundtrack is out now digitally worldwide on Milan
Records, with a CD release on June 28th, and a vinyl release on July 19,
2019 (the day before the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing).
The film will debut on TV (US only) on CNN on June 23rd. A special
48-minute version of the film, ‘Apollo 11: First Steps Edition’, is
playing now in science centers and museums. The ‘Apollo 11’ documentary
team will also be awarded the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science
Communication at the Starmus Festival in Zurich, Switzerland on June
24th along with fellow recipients Elon Musk and Brian Eno.
It's a real honor when you can talk with someone with so much passion
about their craft and you all know my respect for score music. Matt
Morton has earned my respect, he is a true professional when it comes to
this score for the documentary "APPOLLO 11" and I suggest you look for
release from label MILAN RECORDS and MATT MORTON on the web.
Also, thank you for being awesome I got a little behind on this
interview well not a little a lot, but thank you for understanding!
Jeremy [Six Strings]
