Song Exploder - Harry Gregson-Williams - The Martian

Episode Date: October 15, 2015

In the film "The Martian," astronaut Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) is stranded on Mars, forced to rely on science and his ingenuity in order to survive. The film opened at #1 at the box office, and has earned critical praise as well. In this episode, composer Harry Gregson-Williams breaks down his music from the film, where part of his job was to score the excitement of scientific discovery and the grandeur and mystery of Mars itself. songexploder.net/the-martian

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. I've got to figure out a way to grow three years' worth of food here. On a planet where nothing grows. Luckily, I'm a botanist. That's a clip from the film The Martian, where Matt Damon plays astronaut Mark Watney, who's stranded on Mars and has to rely on science and ingenuity in order to survive. time of this recording, the film's been number one at the box office for two weeks straight. In this episode, composer Harry Gregson Williams breaks down his music from the film,

where part of his job was to score the excitement of scientific discovery and the grandeur and mystery of Mars itself. He begins with how director Ridley Scott first offered in the job to work on the film. A script plopped through the letterbox one day with a terse little note on it which said, read it, like it, do it. I'd plowed through the script in one. on hungry sitting and it was a no brain. I was certainly something I really wanted to do. I'm Harry Gregson Williamson, and I'm the composer of The Martian score.

Our first conversations were about tone and color, and he showed me a very, I thought, very complete first assembly of the film. So the film had really taken shape by the time I came to it. The outcome of the first meeting really was that I should focus on Watney, you know, Matt Damon's character which is pretty clear that I should from the script.

His optimism for life, his love of science and problem solving, that he always seems to be able to handle with humor and charisma. All this should be reflected in the music. There was no reason for the music to be too dark for too long in this film. And that was quite a revelation to begin with, because I had thought there would be a lot of darkness and despair. He's only hanging on to a tiny thread of belief there that he could live. But for the most part, this is a guy.

who's up for the challenge. The piece of music that you've picked out here has the technological, scientific aspect of him talking into a camera, and no one else there, him alone on Mars. He looks like he's made up his mind, this is it, this is the day that he's going to leave. The cue's going to start with bass flareats

and low cellian basses. This little theme, Oh, da-da-dam, comes a couple of times in the movie, and it's quite austere, it's part of a Mars motif. motif. And then the moon changes somewhat, brightens. We get to Watney, who's smiling. We hear a little harp thing, a bit of delay on it, which gives us a little spring in our step. I wanted it to be an organic played instrument. I wanted a texture. I didn't want it to be guitar. I didn't want it to be piano. And that kind of limited me. Harp seemed absolutely perfect. And then I'd stick a left-right

to lay on it. I wanted that feeling like a mounting excitement. Musically I had to find a way of embracing a kind of scientific side of the fun he was having. To begin with, you know, I wanted to have some fun with little arpeggiated synths.

In the past, sometimes I'd say my scores are synth with a little bit of orchestra poking that it's heard through. This one, I think, is the other way around. I think it's more organic with some sense bubbling around in the background. So after the cue's been going for a little bit,

there's a gap in what Watney is saying, and that seemed like a perfect place to start the melody, which is these open fourths and fifths. It's getting higher and higher. It's very optimistic. For variation, I added a beautiful alto-glochen-spiel I have, which just give the piano a sparkle. As we go forward, I needed to vary it one more time,

and I add an auto-harp, which is kind of a small instrument, very, very, very high. So these are the sort of things that one's looking to do is to be able to cause development without taking the listener out of the movie for a moment. So instead of using piano all the way through, I'm just adding letters. So halfway through the first part of this cue,

the synths give over to a string-lostanato. So this little figure didal-lid-l-l-lum-pum-pum-pul-lidlum. Really was looking for some release here. I realised that that could interweave itself with the sense. By the time we get a little bit further, the whole orchestra have been introduced. It needed to state his theme quite clearly without being too ostentatious, yet let Watney be the style of the scene, not the music.

Because, let's face it, I mean, Matt Damon's performance really, really pulls this movie, and I really didn't want to get in the way of that. When we go over into the second part of the cue, which has a very different tempo, different feel, different key, the transition is a key change. So there are two or three string chords in there, which say, hello, I'm changing key now. We go from C minor to F major to B flat major,

which is where we really want to be in a major key. At first, I wrote the back part of this cue in the same key as the front part in C minor, and it didn't seem to give me the lift I was looking for. So I doubled back and realized that the transition from the joy of him leaving to the sort of majesty of him crossing Mars, that was a perfect

place for a modulation. And then boom, the French horn comes in and the new key with the beginning of the theme. Also the choir, they're a London choir and they're awesome. They had a text that we found a poem called On the Nature of Things by a Roman philosopher called La Cretius.

So they are actually singing something that makes sense conceptually, but more importantly for me at that moment they're singing vowels and consonants they're not just singing ooze and ars. If we're asking the audience to take something really seriously and the Hollywood choir come in

ooing and a-ring and cooing and goodness knows what, it just takes the piss of it. It's like, what? I don't believe that. So they're singing about infinite space and their part in this thing. It sounds like something important.

These are methods to hopefully make the music more believable. A lot of my writing time was very pleasurable in this movie. I think it really helps when the movie's so down good. The acting's good. The writing's good. It was very much a joy. And now, here's the fully assembled score suite from The Martian, composed by Harry Gregson Williams. Visit SongExploder.net for more information about this episode and The Martian. I've put up a photo of Harry Gregson Williams conducting the orchestra at Abbey Road as they recorded the score. There's also a link to buy The Martian score suite. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th.

It's been about 15 years since I last put out of full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishi Kesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. and this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists,

including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Robe. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzukas, Josh Malina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more.

They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In The Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co, or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. Next time on SongExploder, Chet Faker.

Song Exploder is part of Radiotopia, a collective of some of my favorite podcasts. Go to Radiotopia.fm to learn more. You can find me on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook with the username at Song Exploder, and you can subscribe to future episodes at iTunes.com slash Song Exploder. I'm Rishi Kesh Hereway.

Thanks for listening. Radiotopia.