I started out as a producer. and I used to work at Disney. and I worked with a lot of the animators and went on to become great friends with a lot of these guys and worked on a lot of projects together.
We're all inspired by what has come before us, but hope to use the inspiration to create our own. That's the artist's journey. It's a pretty amazing path.
I like the sounds of real, living, breathing musicians. When a real person plays something, there's a soul. They're giving you their emotions.
I'm not the kind of person who works 24 hours a day, mostly out of laziness; I don't know.
I even went to film school at School of Visual Arts in New York City. And then, after that, I got a day job at Universal publicity department, then moved over to Disney publicity department. So I had this day job, and at night I would study music.
My parents loved music, but they weren't musicians. So my musical training as a young kid was limited to piano lessons. I was not the best student; I was awful, never practiced. But I was always interested in just messing around on the piano.
Art is difficult. It's not always going to please everyone; it's not always going to work the way you want it to work.
I like live musicians and personally orchestrate about 80 to 90% of all my scores.
There was a time that I did 'Up,' 'Star Trek' and 'Land of the Lost,' and I was working on 'Lost,' at the same time, and that was really hard.
Music helps immensely with math skills, and math skills help immensely with music skills.
Hopefully, by the time I do a project, I already have a true understanding and love of what I'm about to do because if I don't, I'm not going to work on that project. I really want to have those connections so I can be truthful to the emotional aspect of what I have to deliver for the story.
My dad gave me his camera, so I spent my childhood making movies with the kids in the neighborhood as actors.
I always liked melody.
My dad had a great record collection, which included some music from Mexico, and so I always loved it.
I love Batman.
I like to think that I probably have written more World War II music than anyone on the planet after all the 'Medal of Honors' and 'Call of Duties.'
I have tons of drawings of 'Star Wars,' whether it be stormtroopers, Darth Vader, Star Destroyers, or the whole thing.
I made tons of stop motion films with my friends in my neighborhood.
I loved writing 'Lost.' It was like a never-ending opera, in a way.
That's one of the neat things about 'Call of Duty.' There are areas in the game where we were able to score the gameplay.
