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  • 2 months ago
A Bonus Feature from Flushed Away 2007 DVD Australia
Transcript
00:00We're very lucky to have Harry Gregson-Williams writing the score for our movie.
00:26He's the lead of the Shrek films, he did Narnia, and he's produced this Londonesque, uplifting score that we love.
00:32Okay, let's play. Here it is.
00:43Well, it's a particularly collaborative experience scoring an animated movie, because it's never really finished until it really is finished.
00:51I mean, even now, today, we're sitting in Abbey Road. I record a lot of music already, and worryingly, a lot of the animation's not quite finished,
00:58so I'm going to have to adjust the music as I go along.
01:02So with 25, so with 29, so I just thought I'd just weave a bit together.
01:08The lengths of cues tend to expand somewhat, so I work to storyboards to begin with, and then animatics, and then final animation.
01:19My job is to take all that on board, and push forward it, and do what's necessary.
01:24With Harry, we're trying to make this kind of real classic movie score, and just to really support what this film is,
01:30which is a kind of a comedy and an adventure, you know.
01:34And it kind of, in some ways, is like an Indiana Jones movie, one of these fabulous action sequences.
01:39Hang on tight, Rita!
01:49We're okay, we're okay, we're okay.
01:50Try opening your eyes!
01:52In other places, we've been very silly and very commie.
01:55And we have this incredibly moving, kind of emotional story that goes through the film,
02:12where Roddy learns that, in fact, he didn't have it all.
02:16Oh, Rita!
02:17Oh, thank goodness you're safe!
02:20Because he didn't really have any family, any real friends and family.
02:27Goodnight!
02:28Goodnight!
02:29Goodnight!
02:30Goodnight!
02:32Yeah, well, goodnight then, Roddy.
02:35There's a sequence in the middle of the movie that I decided to score first,
02:39because for one moment, the movie stops racing along,
02:43and there's just a little bit of air in the movie.
02:47The music just breathes and springs into life.
02:50Tell me about your life up top.
02:52Friends?
02:53Family?
02:55Uh...
02:56You do have a family, don't you?
02:58Oh, of course I do.
03:00Brothers, sisters, cousins.
03:02We're quite a clan.
03:04Oh, you wouldn't believe the fun we have.
03:06Hanging out at the movies, playing golf, going skiing.
03:09It's just, just so great!
03:13No one didn't want to get home.
03:15Yeah.
03:16So it's just a moment of the film where I was able to, um,
03:21to write an emotional theme which would bring them together.
03:25And actually the, the main thematic thread is, is about Roddy's story.
03:30And about home and family.
03:31Yeah, it's about home, really.
03:32It's like, when Harry got in there and did his score,
03:34the whole, the whole movie starts to hold together as one unified piece.
03:38It's fantastic.
03:39Yeah.
03:40It starts to feel like a real movie for the first time.
03:42Well, there's a certain combustible, I shouldn't say quite, I don't know,
03:46there's something that happens when you put 80 musicians in a room together.
03:50They're, they're all impressing a slight characteristic on the music, um, which is fantastic.
04:06And as a, as a whole, it just, uh, it's difficult to imagine doing without them.
04:12And going into the room where the orchestra's recording was really magical.
04:15Oh, it was really special.
04:16It was so much richer and so much fuller and so much better.
04:18It was, uh, really an amazing experience.
04:20I hope we had a chance to sort of just let Harry go and be silly and have fun.
04:24And it was, uh, it was very rewarding for us to hear what he came up with.
04:29When the cat's away, the mice will play music, maestro.
04:38The song that introduces Roddy is actually, it's not really,
04:41it's one of the rare musical influences in the film where we weren't going for the tone of the music
04:45and we weren't going for the sound of the singer's voice, but it was really all about story.
04:49The song is Dancing With Myself.
04:50Yeah.
04:51Because it made sense for the story, you know, it kind of set Roddy up.
04:54It did.
04:55And it sort of told you what, you know, he, he, what, what it was about him that we were dealing with.
05:06Yeah, that was the first one we put into the movie.
05:08Yeah.
05:09And we wanted to show the difference between Roddy's very posh, up top world in Kensington,
05:12which is quite serene and quite formal and then being flushed away into this sort of,
05:17it's a strange play.
05:18It's wonderful.
05:19There's something with a bit of edge to it.
05:20Yeah.
05:21So we have an eclectic selection of songs in our movie.
05:23We also have E. Dan Warhol.
05:24Rita!
05:25We didn't choose a particular thing in the score for Rita.
05:32She doesn't have her theme.
05:33But we, we mostly used pop music and rock music, you know, like contemporary music for
05:39her.
05:40She's, she's urban.
05:41She's kind of wild.
05:42She's a modern girl.
05:43She's a modern girl.
05:44She was the perfect choice for Roddy because he has this wonderfully, wonderfully light touch
05:57and he's charming and he sings and we took full advantage of that.
06:01The first song he sings in the movie, the ice cold Rita song on the boat.
06:11We forgot to take the music to the recording session.
06:14We had, we had, we, we left it behind.
06:16We were a bit stuck.
06:17We had to get it.
06:18So we just asked you to make something up and he did.
06:20He, he, he had about, he just, he just went, oh, fine.
06:23And he sang three, four, five different versions of the song.
06:26They were all lovely.
06:27They were all, they're all terrific.
06:29Sing us a song, Tom.
06:32We also had Hugh singing a bit of Tom Jones.
06:35And the lady wears big her knees.
06:45The Roddy singing on the duck bit was, was just Roddy singing on the duck for about a year.
06:50And we had a very rare, you know, visit from Nick Hark actually, you know, cause he's dead
06:54busy making the were-rabbit.
06:56But he, he sort of had a quick look at the film and he said, oh, wouldn't it be fun if the
07:01slugs came in and joined, joined in singing with Roddy.
07:04Poor, poor Roddy, flushed out his own body.
07:09Rita, can't you find it in your heart?
07:13Oh, help me.
07:15How many good ones, Randy?
07:18Why it's called Rita?
07:20Won't you be sweeter to me?
07:25Oh!
07:26But it worked so well.
07:28That one idea that it sort of opened the gates to singing slugs.
07:32What's that urge from deep inside?
07:35The nature of love, love, love.
07:41Well, we wanted to end the film on a high note.
07:51We found this Rolling Down the River by Tina Turner and it's such a great track.
07:57We found a wonderful version of it, a live version.
08:01And so we started working with that and of course our slugs had been singing a bit by then.
08:06It's an amazing vocal performance and it's a very energetic song.
08:09And the song is all about rolling on the river.
08:22At the end of the movie, Roddy and Rita and Rita's entire family are rolling on the river off into the sunset.
08:27So it couldn't have been more after.
08:33Shall we go for it?
08:47Oh, I love a happy ending.
08:49So let's see.
09:03Cool?
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