After three outstanding seasons, Battlestar Galactica continues to receive pretty much universal critical acclamation and with good cause.  Though couched in a sci-fi context, The Star is so much more than well-rounded Trek-style shimmies.  Gritty, realistic scenarios, outstanding special effects, excellent writing and a phenomenal cast of clearly dedicated-to-the-cause actors come together to make what has been consistently described as one of the best shows on television and often enough, as THE best.  It is quite literally human drama in space, with a distinctly crafted aesthetic and a complex, occasionally transcendent storyline articulated in an elegantly detached manner.  I'm not going into what it's all about.  If you haven't watched it, go do it now.  You'll thank me for it later.

Unmistakable in The Star's look and feel is the music.  Whilst the original pilot/miniseries was scored by ex-Oingo Boingo man Richard Gibbs, the music for the series has been the work of the original and very gifted mind of Bear McCreary.  The Battlestar Galactica soundscape is outstanding amongst sci-fi, at least for TV.  The use of world music styles, from both eastern and western cultures, emphasises the painful humanity that is at the core of this drama.  I asked Mr McCreary a few questions, using the worldwide internet, about how he goes about pulling off this weighty task.
 

PJN     Your teacher was Elmer Bernstein.  Was he an influence musically on your work and did he help turn your mind towards writing for the screen?

BMc    Elmer was a tremendous influence on me, both professionally and personally.  I was always a fan of his work, even before I knew it.  Films like Animal House, Blues Brothers, Heavy Metal and Ghostbusters were favourites when I was growing up.  Then, in high school, I started to discover the classics of film music, including Bernard Herrmann, Alex North and Elmer Bernstein.  I was shocked to discover that the composer who gave us To Kill a Mockingbird also did my favourite 80’s movies! 
            And of course, getting the opportunity to work with him for nearly a decade had a profound impact on my career, my musicianship and my life in general.

PJN     How was it for you to cover a very public version of a legendary song such as "All Along the Watchtower"?  Did you feel any added responsibility working that one out?

BMc    It was a difficult moment for me, for sure.  My responsibility is, first and foremost, to the show.  So, no, I didn’t feel any extra pressure to do the song justice, because that wasn’t my job.  My only goal was to make the song fit in the Battlestar Galactica universe.  Of course, that alone is no small task.  So, I had a hell of a time taking something so familiar to so many people and wedging into the musical soundscape of the series.  However, when I was done, I am proud of what we pulled together.  I think we served the show and did the song justice.

PJN     How does the working relationship between yourself and Ron Moore work?  It's clear that the music is an extremely important element of BSG, so how much is he involved in the process?  Does he have clear ideas from scene to scene and how far does your own vision play a part?

BMc    It varies from episode to episode.  Sometimes the role of the music is written directly into the script. Crossroads Part II is the most obvious example, but there are many others.  But sometimes I get very little musical guidance and I’m on my own to make musical decisions about which themes to use, or to decide to write new ones entirely.  However, I’m always very conservative.  Anytime the music takes a wild shift in a new direction, you can bet that Ron Moore and David Eick were involved in that decision.  They’ll often give me a wild idea, like introducing bagpipes or rock and roll, and then leave me alone to figure out how to make it work with the show and the score.

PJN     I'm interested to know about your working process. Clearly each episode has a deadline, so has that caused you to implement a systematic approach, and if so, could you describe it for me?

BMc    The approach isn’t as systematic as I’d like it to be.  :)  Each episode is its own little adventure.  But, generally I spot the shows with the producers and then take them back to my studio.  The next time the producers hear anything at all from me is at the final mix.

PJN     Are you working with the footage in front of you?

BMc    Always.  Sometimes, complex visual FX shots are incomplete, or even just storyboards, but I always have footage in front of me, regardless of how incomplete it may be.

PJN     Do you have much interaction with the cast at all?  Has there ever been an instance of BSG cast having input on the music?
           
BMc    Actually, yes and this has been increasing as the show has gone on.  For example, there’s a song I’ve written for a cast member to sing onscreen in season 4.  He and I collaborated with the screenwriter (who wrote the lyrics) to bring this song together, and it will be featured throughout the episode both as a song and background score.

PJN     Have you ever disagreed with the choice of musical style for a particular scene and how was that managed?

BMc    Disagreements come up from time to time, but it’s a very collaborative process.  We always come up with a good solution.

PJN     What sort of time frame do you have to create each episode's soundtrack and how many hours a day would you spend writing music?

BMc    This varies wildly from show to show.  I’ve had as long as two months, or as little as three days.  Regardless, I’m always working basically every waking moment.  It’s a relentless job.

PJN     Writing deadlines aside, how do you initially conceive of a piece?  Do you have an abstract approach to the process?

BMc    Writing music and scoring to picture can be very different things.  I “conceive” of a piece when I watch the events on screen.  That’s generally all the inspiration I need.  Subtleties in the picture will dictate the form, dynamics, thematic content… almost everything you need to bring together a piece of music.  So, generally, once I watch a scene a couple times, I know exactly what I’m going to do.  Now, there are obvious exceptions to this, scenes that require an unusual approach.  And when I’m writing music that isn’t scoring to picture it is a very different process.

PJN     How much of the BSG soundtrack is live and how much is electronic? Can you talk about how you work these two approaches together?

BMc    The computer is just another instrument, so I don’t think of them as two different approaches.  There are many live musicians on Battlestar Galactica.  All the percussion, ethnic soloists, vocalists, strings, brass, guitars, drums and anything else featured prominently are performed live.  The electronic elements simply fill out the sound.

PJN     Is the overall aesthetic of the BSG music one that comes naturally to you?  There are quite prominent Middle Eastern, Indian and Celtic influences all the way through and I know Ron Moore used Peter Gabriel's "Passion" as temp stuff.  Did you find adapting to world music difficult and can you give me an example of a challenge you came across in this respect and how you overcame it?

BMc    The world music approach was a difficult one to get in to.  Before Galactica, I didn’t really listen to much non-western music.  But now it’s like second nature to me.  The initial difficulty came from the fact that the show itself needed a wide range of emotions in the music.  There were epic battle scenes, complex character relationships and prophetic, religious themes coming into play.  A full orchestra would’ve made it very easy!  But, in the beginning, I only had some percussion and a couple wind instruments, including the Armenian duduk and a Japanese bansuri, at my disposal.  So, I had to become more resourceful.  Sounds had to count for a lot more, when you can’t change colors every 8 bars like you can when you’re orchestrating a full symphonic work. 
            As the series went on, more and more sonic colors became available.  The palette expanded, but I never changed my approach.  Going into the fourth season, I feel quite liberated.  There are many ethnic soloists I have at my disposal and I never wish I had more instruments to communicate the emotion.

PJN     I have to congratulate you on "The Shape of Things To Come".  Like really!  Elegant, stylish, beautifully proportioned and still to this day exciting for me to listen to.  That is a piece that I wish I'd written and I can tell you enjoyed writing it.  Did you feel you particularly hit it with that one and what was it that you were aiming for creatively in your mind there?

BMc    I was so excited about that episode; I just knew it was going to be a knockout.  So I just wanted to write a piece that lived up to the promise of the story.  Since then, I’ve received letters from many people who say they enjoy the piece outside of the show, which is something I never really thought about, but it’s a wonderful, unintended result.

PJN     Do you recycle?  As in do you use material from earlier works?

BMc    Well, I obviously use themes from previous episodes of a show, but no, that approach rarely works.  I’ve found that themes have to be written for a particular project, or they always feel alien, or tacked on.  The only time I’ve done that in recent memory was for Eureka.  Jack’s theme, which appears in every episode, was a little tune that I had written about 6 months earlier just for fun, but didn’t know what to do with.  When I got the job scoring Eureka, I was playing around with the tune and realized that it fits Jack’s quirky character perfectly.

PJN     Who have been the major influences upon you, musically and otherwise?

BMc    My biggest musical influences are Bernard Herrmann, Elmer Bernstein, Danny Elfman and Ennio Morricone.  I’ve listened to their music my entire life.

PJN     When did you first start writing music?  Did you always know you were a composer?

BMc    I first started writing music when I was about 10 years old.  But, I was never any good at it for many years.  I struggled and struggled to come up with anything worthwhile.  I started scoring little films in high school and my ability to write coherent musical ideas began to take shape.  Finally, my senior year of high school I couldn’t stand the pressure of not knowing if I could score a film.  I had to know if I could sustain a musical idea for an entire feature-film score. 
Since there were no features for a seventeen-year-old living in Bellingham, WA to score… I wrote one.  I scripted a feature length script, and envisioned every single shot in my mind.  I then set out to score this imaginary film.  It took me an entire year.  I worked after school every day, and wrote 75 minutes of music, mocked up on my MIDI synthesizer.  From that point on, I knew I could sustain a career in music.

PJN     Have you found yourself having to become more stylistically versatile working as a screen composer, or were you naturally this way?

BMc    Absolutely, but I’ve always strived for versatility.  I’ve always looked for weird new instruments to write for, and new styles to experiment in.  So, I use each new gig as an opportunity to experiment and explore.

PJN     I know you play piano and piano accordion.  Are there any other instruments you pull out now and then?

BMc    Not really, I’m a keyboardist by trade.  But, I love playing drums too.  I’m terrible, but after investing many hours into playing Rock Band I swear I’m starting to get better.

PJN     Your brother BT4 is also obviously a musician.  Are you from a musical family that stretches back generations?

BMc    There have been many fabulous musicians in our family.  My grandparents on my father’s side were both piano teachers, my grandfather on my mother’s side was a trumpet player and his father played fiddle.  But, my brother and I are the first to become professional performers and composers.

PJN     On a topical point, the writer's strike.  Do the concerns voiced by the writers have any implications or correlations for composers in the industry?  Do you have any concerns about how the strike may impact BSG?
           
BMc    The writers’ concerns effect everyone in the business, and composers are no exception.  The strike has most certainly impacted Galactica, and every other scripted show out there.  I think all BG fans should be a little concerned.

PJN     Do you have any long term specific goals as a composer and if so, what are they?

BMc    Yes!  To finish scoring every episode of Battlestar Galactica! 

Amen to that!

PJNoack