Composer Cliff Martinez shares his philosophy on movie music and stories from his collaborations with Nicolas Winding Refn ("The Neon Demon" "Drive") and Steven Soderbergh ("Contagion" "The Knick"); How singer-songwriter Kandace Springs was inspired by her father and mentored by Prince; Why the holiday weekend left Spielberg's "The BFG" wanting.
'Neon Demon' composer Cliff Martinez enjoys feeling like a 'Hollywood outsider'
Cliff Martinez never considered film composing as a possible career. After all, he got his start as a drummer for this little band called the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
But after an opportunity to score an episode of "Pee-wee’s Playhouse" in the ‘80s, Martinez became hooked on writing music for the big and small screen.
Since then he’s racked up an impressive list of credits, including many of Steven Soderbergh's films, and three movies by Nicolas Winding Refn —“Drive,” “Only God Forgives” and “The Neon Demon.”
"Neon Demon" is set in the world of L.A. fashion and stars Elle Fanning as the new girl in town. The other women will do anything to steal a piece of her modeling mojo.
We recently coaxed Martinez out of his studio in Topanga Canyon to visit our studio in Pasadena to talk about his work.
How singer Kandace Springs got a big break from Prince
Kandace Springs may not be a household name, but she was already gaining attention from fellow musicians such as Ghostface Killah and Prince before she ever released an album.
Kandace Springs Ghostface Killah
Springs is a 27-year-old soul singer from Nashville who’s been playing music since she was 10. She recently released her first full-length album, “Soul Eyes,” on Blue Note Records. The Frame’s James Kim spoke with the Nashville singer about the origin of her sound and how The Purple One himself helped get her start in the music industry.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
On how she learned to play the piano:
My dad — without him I don't know where I'd be, to be honest — really encouraged me to get into music. And the way it worked out, one of his friends fell on hard times and she was being [evicted from] her house. She had this old upright piano that meant the world to her. She called my father, since we had room in our house, [saying], "Can you keep this piano for us?" I was about 10-years-old at the time, and he was like, "Alright, we'll take the piano."
We took it in and probably a couple days later I started picking on the piano. My dad was like, "Hey, you're pretty good." And he played a little ghetto version of "Moonlight Sonata" on it and I played it back. About 10 minutes later I was playing really fast. He was like, "That ain't normal! I'm gonna get you some lessons."
Kandace Springs Thought It Would Be Easier
On finding her voice as a singer:
I probably started singing when I was about 13 or 14. But I didn't want to sing, I just wanted to be a piano player. My dad would call me and my sisters down in the room and would force us to sing and we would cry. [laughs] We would sing church hymns and stuff like that.
My dad had me listening to Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone. So I would take all of those soulful and original sounding tones and I've developed my own sound. My dad was like, "You don't sound like anybody else." And eventually Prince was saying the same thing to me, too.
On her first time meeting Prince:
Prince came into my life about two years ago. We had put up a video — it was when Sam Smith's "Stay With Me" was a big hit. We put [my cover version] up online and Okayplayer decided to premiere it on their page. Apparently, Prince likes to follow them and then he directly hit me up on social media.
Of course, I didn't believe it at first, and then he said, "All of your dreams are about to come true. You wanna come play with my band?" And then Capitol Records calls an hour later and said, "Prince just called us," and then literally, they were like, "He wants you to come play for his 30th 'Purple Rain' anniversary."
So I'm on an airplane three days later and I meet him the day of [the show]. I forgot how short he actually was, so the door opens, I'm looking straight ahead, and then I realize I have to look down and there he is.
On Prince's fashion tips:
When I was about to perform that evening, I wanted to make sure that I looked good. So I put on this crop top and tight jeans, and he comes up to me and he's like, "Um, you're not gonna wear that. Just come upstairs, I have something for you to wear." So I go upstairs and he picks out this beautiful leather jacket, it's custom made. I wore it, closed the show, gave it back to him. I said, "Here's the jacket," and he said, "Nah, you can keep it." So I still have it to this day and I'm too scared to take it anywhere because it means so much.
On the inspiring words from her father and Prince:
Prince said to always be true to who I am [because] at some point in life, somebody will try to change who you are. That's one thing Prince and my father said: Know who you are. Be who you are.
Kandace Springs' debut full-length album, "Soul Eyes," is out now.
Has Steven Spielberg lost his box office appeal?
There was a time when a movie directed by Steven Spielberg was almost guaranteed box office gold. But this past weekend his latest film, "The BFG" was not a big deal at all. At least, not according to moviegoers. Box Office Mojo reports that the film took in just $22.7 million in the U.S. over the four-day holiday weekend. That's a particularly bad showing given that the production budget was reportedly $140 million.
But "The BFG" wasn't alone. The new "The Legend of Tarzan," which had a reported production budget of $180 million, took in $46.6 million dollars domestically, which means that if it doesn't achieve success internationally, Warner Bros will be out some cash.
Scott Mendelson, who is a contributor to Forbes, joined The Frame's John Horn to talk about why "The BFG" debut turned out to be a disappointment, and how holiday weekends aren't what they used to be in terms of delivering blockbusters.
Interview Highlights:
On paper, "The BFG" looked like a BFD at the box office: Steven Spielberg directing a family-friendly movie based on a beloved Roald Dahl book, with “Bridge of Spies” Oscar-winner Mark Rylance in a starring role. And yet "The BFG" was DOA at the box office. What happened?
"The BFG" is based on a book that a lot of people might know, but are not terribly fanatical about. Mark Rylance may have won an Oscar, but regular audiences don't really know who he is. Steven Spielberg certainly is still a name, especially among people that follow the film industry and are "film fans." But I would argue to a certain extent, he's not as much of a draw as he was a generation ago when the would-be blockbusters were less concept-based.
It wasn’t a cheap movie — it cost at least $140 million to make, and probably even more than that to market worldwide. Spielberg has directed some 30 movies. Where does "The BFG" fall in his flops column?
It's always possible it will go nuts overseas. I'm not predicting as much, but I don't want to rule it out at this early juncture. But let's assume that it does badly. It will be basically the fourth flop ever for Steven Spielberg. But the interesting thing about "The BFG" is that it's the first Steven Spielberg flop that was explicitly intended to be a commercial, crowd-pleasing, blockbuster-ish movie. "Amistad" was a historical drama; "Empire of the Sun" was a relatively star-less, wrenching, historical drama. "The BFG" is different in that it was arguably what you think of when you think of a Steven Spielberg blockbuster movie. Except that it didn't have stars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HahYmZGTohc
Next weekend the studio behind the "Despicable Me" and "Minions" movies has “The Secret Life of Pets,” which is aimed at the same audience as "The BFG." So it’s going to be tough for "The BFG" to get to even $60 million domestically.
Yes, there's going to be a lot of competition for "The BFG." The good news is, it's Disney's last release for around a month, until "Pete's Dragon" in the middle of August. They've been very [successful] for the entire year. The exception to the rule, of course, is "Alice Through the Looking Glass." If "The BFG" is another disappointment — and at this point I think it's safe to assume it will be — the irony is that the two misses thus far this year in the tentpole category are the films that opened over a holiday weekend, which is just more of a sign that holiday openings aren't necessarily the big deal they used to be. The big movies go for the weekend before the big holiday so they can use the holiday weekend to buffer the second weekend drop.
Movie studios now have a The dog ate my homework excuse, which is that the movie is going to do great overseas. We heard that from Disney about "The BFG" and from another movie that didn't open to huge business, "The Legend of Tarzan." Is that often true that these movies will do better overseas?
There are plenty of examples of movies doing better overseas than in America, but it's not always enough to save them. A good example would be — in all likelihood — "The Legend of Tarzan," which, quite frankly, a $46 million four-day weekend is the absolute best case scenario that film could have hoped for. But the film cost $180 million to make, which is sequel money.
The other issue is that, even if box office revenues are running a little ahead of last year, the budgets and the marketing spends are huge, sometimes $400 million in one swing. So even if revenues are ahead, is the theatrical business still relatively healthy?
Yes and no. The thing that concerns me this year is that you have "Finding Dory," "Captain America," "Deadpool," "Batman v Superman," "Zootopia," "The Jungle Book," and then the two holdovers from last year, "The Revenant" and "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" — those are the top eight movies of the year. Those films make up a huge percentage of the overall domestic box office this year. And [that's] a much bigger amount than we usually see in a given year where you don't have as much of a chasm between the biggest movies and everything else. I don't want to be too simplistic, but the middle class is not doing well this year.